A Musical Journey

It all started with a reel on Instagram, and it ended up a lovely, music-filled, laughter-inducing, educational journey with my kids as we listened to and watched videos of all kinds of beautiful melodies and instruments. I thought it might be a fun resource to put all the links of the gems we found in one place, in case anyone else wanted to spend some time doing the same!

In the reel, in a “man-on-the-streets” style interview, a woman asks a man (in French) to pick between two composers.  He picks, and then she asks him again; the one he just favored against a new composer. Eventually, after many rounds of this, he ended up with Maurice Ravel.  Now, I do love music, and it was entertaining to watch, but I was particularly delighted because Ravel is our composer to learn about this term.  I have recently discovered how much I love his compositions, and I knew the kids would get a kick out of seeing him mentioned.  So I saved the reel.

At breakfast the next morning, I pulled out my phone.  We rarely watch videos at breakfast, so the kids were excited (in reality, my husband was gone for the morning, and it had been a rough night, and I thought a few moments of quiet, sipping coffee time sounded necessary). I pulled up the reel, and we watched it.  My eight and six year olds recognized a few of the names, like Mozart and Beethoven, and, of course, Ravel.

After a brief discussion to refresh their memories on what we had learned about Maurice Ravel, I decided to pull up some music by the other composers listed.  So we listened to Handel, Vivaldi, Tchaikovsky, Debussy, and Bach. When I pulled up “Fanfare for the Common Man” by Aaron Copland, my four year old perked up. “Is this Star Wars?” he asked eagerly.

So then we talked about the similarities between the current song and themes in Star Wars, namely, triumphant brass.  Of course, I had to pull up the Imperial March for a quick listen.  Then I had an idea.

“I’ll play a song by John Williams,” I said, “and you guys guess what movie it’s from!”

Since my kids are still pretty little, there weren’t a huge selection of his songs I could pick from that they would recognize, but they were excited to identify music from Harry Potter, Jurassic Park, Star Wars, and Jaws (which they haven’t seen, but the theme is iconic). 

All the music inspired the eight year old to ask for songs played on “that invisible instrument that you don’t touch”.  It’s called a theremin, and it’s so fascinating to watch.  He wanted to listen to his current favorite song, Carol of the Bells, so we did.  Then we saw a video on the sidebar that was Carol of the Bells done in acapella style by some sisters.  We had a request for I’ll Make a Man Out of You from Mulan on a theremin, but could not find one.  We DID find a heavy metal version, though.  Talking about music made me think of The Sound of Music, and then I wanted to go back to acapella. That led to a video by Pentatonix, God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, in keeping with the Christmas theme.  It was cool the sounds they could make with their voices, but then I wanted to show the kids some super incredible beatboxing…..

It was basically the If You Give A Mouse A Cookie of a homeschool mom with access to the internet, eager children, and coffee in hand.

I hope that this list of links can be a launching off point for anyone who wants to discover some cool styles, talents, and instruments.  Maybe you follow our journey, or maybe something here will spark your imagination and take you someplace entirely different!  Happy listening!

The Reel- https://www.instagram.com/p/C3xQueAN3T7/

(And in case you want to listen to each composer, here is a list of the ones mentioned in the video)

1.  Ludwig van Beethoven
2. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
3. Johann Sebastian Bach
4. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
5. Frederic Chopin
6. Claude Debussy
7. Johann Strauss
8. Antonio Vivaldi
9. George Frideric Handel
10. Franz Schubert
11. Igor Stravinsky
12. Richard Wagner
13. Johannes Brahms
14. Giuseppe Verdi
15. Sergei Rachmaninoff
16. Aaron Copland
17. Maurice Ravel
18. Gustav Mahler
19. Joseph Haydn
20. Dmitri Chostakovitch