Ship Full o' Pirates

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The study of great music is a delight.  I am always so thrilled that I get to train my children’s taste in music, as opposed to the world doing that for me.

As homeschoolers, we are so blessed to be able to influence our children’s hearts and minds.  And in the case of music appreciation, your choice of what to study impacts your child’s sense of who he is, what kind of person he is.

I’m sure that there are homeschool families that choose to study heavy metal rock as an art form.  But not in our home, phew!

I prefer that my Pirates relate to Beethoven, Charlie Zahm and yes, even Ray Stevens.  Who do you want your children to relate to?  Train ‘em while they’re short little powder monkeys.

As promised, today I am re-printing an article on how to get your music appreciation for free, written by my cyber-friend, Faith at Blessed Quietness.

Faith is the mama of five little Pirates, six years old and under, and is just beginning her voyage into the vast adventure of home education.  Although she is just setting-out, she has some incredibly good ideas.  Enjoy!

Really? It can DO that?

I love iTunes! Yesterday in light of Charlotte Mason’s preference for the study of good art, we wanted to find a recording of Bach’s Magnificat to play (over, and over, and over since Mama may have a new favorite here!) for the boys as part of composer study. But both Barnes and Noble and Borders have turned up their corporate noses at the Imperial Valley and I’m not betting on Walmart’s selection. But five minutes online and voila, we’d sampled five different recordings and our favorite was downloaded and coming out the speakers!

But purchasing aside, am I the only one to have missed that iTunes has a radio feature? Our house is in the middle of a radio wasteland. We get maybe six clear stations, and only three of those are in English. But just look at iTunes radio; the options are nearly endless. Twenty-eight different categories to choose from, and each with another twenty radio options at least. And they’re all free. Wow. Oh, I can see homeschool potential in this.

And I may have a new favorite station. Look what I found down at the bottom of the Classical section:

“Whisperings: Solo Piano Radio.
Piano Music to Quiet Your World.”

I mean, how did they know the boys have been surpassing themselves in noise lately? (Note to self: The First Olympics movie may be G-rated and educational, but showing it will quite possibly inspire burning and immediate desires to construct hurdles and pole vaulting areas. In the living room. At bedtime. This will be nothing but trouble for said bedtime, to say nothing for shins and the coffee table.)

But did I miss this feature somewhere on the iTunes download agreement? ITunes is offering to personally quiet this house. Remotely. Through cyberspace. What that looks like, I have no idea. But I’m cranking up the volume on this one, baby. It’s worth a try, right?

After having read this, The Cap’n got right on it and now we can listen to a huge assortment of Classical Music.  He also found Napster to have a large assortment of free music.  Another perk of not listening to all the latest (and scariest) music is that we sometimes get it for free and never have to pay premium prices for the “old” stuff.

Pay Faith a visit at her blog, Blessed Quietness.  She has some very clever ideas on teaching her children.  I totally love how she teaches Geography.

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