Music has been an integral part of history since the beginning. From the psalms of David to your favorite Amazon playlists or Spotify stations today, every culture in every time period has used music for expression, pleasure, and even a high form of worship. Music clearly carries meaning.
Music tells us how to feel. While the words are often important, it is the notes being played that dictate what those words mean. And when you listen to music without words, there is no loss; the combination of notes can evoke joy or sadness, excitement or calm. Think of music in the background of a movie; we know suspense, fear, sentiment, or happiness based on the notes being played.
You are forming your child’s tastes in the pre-school and school years and what is being poured into his ears — and consequently, his soul —matters. It matters a great deal. And it stays with us for a long time. I bet every Xennial out there can sing the words to their favorite show’s theme song1, just like I can. As we talked about with memory work, remembering allows us to pass culture from one generation to the next.
What do you want your kids to be able to sing or hum when they have children of their own? Some of the music you introduce in your homeschool may stay with your kids their whole life.
What is the soundtrack of your home?
Of their childhood?
We’ve covered hymns and folk songs and today we’ll cover timeless, though wordless, music written by names that have carried on through the centuries. This is composer study.
Charlotte Mason believed it was important not to hear this music randomly, but to take time and get to know the style and music of each composer:
“Let the young people hear good music as often as possible, and that under instruction. It is a pity we like our music, as our pictures and our poetry, mixed, so that there are few opportunities of going through, as a listener, a course of the works of a single composer. But this is to be aimed at for the young people; let them study occasionally the works of a single great master until they have received some of his teaching, and know his style.”
Good music is not age-sensitive. The whole family will benefit from composer study and it’s an easy thing to lay in to your every day life. If you have never done composer study, I encourage you to consider it, no matter where you are at on your homeschooling journey.
Composer Study
Goal: to become familiar with the composer and enjoy his/her work
- Composer study is meant to provide an immersive experience by focusing on one composer at a time, including the reading of a short biography. The hope is for the child to develop a relationship with the music and become familiar enough that he can recognize, “Oh, that’s Mozart!”
- When you are starting out…
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