Music and the Home School

Home school families have the unique opportunity to link music and art into the areas they're already studying in science and history. Because there is a disconnect in the public school between the "arts" and the "studies", there is typically less of an understanding in these areas. I'm hoping that this post will help home school families find a way to bridge that gap.


Many home school families struggle with how to teach or incorporate music and art into their day. There seems to be little time and sometimes lack of training can be an issue. Here are some thoughts that may help.


Music history has been broken down into eras. The composers and styles of these eras can be linked to historical time frames. Where writing and reading sometimes fail to describe a particular event or time frame adequately, music can step in and build a brain picture.

Here are some historical eras to start with:

450-1450 Middle Ages: music was involved in the spread of the Church, Islam was being spread and much of its music was influential at the time, Europe was beginning to develop

Music Styles: recorder, medieval music, monophonic music (Gregorian chant)

Composers: Hildegard von Bingen, Moniot d'Arras, Guillaume de Machaut

1450-1600 Renaissance: music was viewed as a cultural growth, this time was considered a rebirth, a new world was being formed, science and the arts were beginning to take a new form 

Music Styles: madrigals, toccata, prelude, dance music 
Composers: Claudio Monteverdi, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina

1600-1750 Baroque: music became involved in the "experimentalism" of the new modern world

Music Styles: voice and instruments together, basso continuo

Composers:  Claudio Monteverdi, Henry Purcell, Antonio Vivaldi, George Frideric Handel, Johann Sebastian Bach

1750-1825 Classical: Industrial Revolution, Enlightenment, republican government, nature in the arts 

Music Styles: Piano solos, Sonatas

Composers: Franz Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig Van Beethoven

1825-1900 Romantic: nationalism, exotics,  science and mysticism in music

Music Styles: program music

Composers: Franz Schubert, Giuseppe Verdi, Clara Schumann, Richard Wagner, Franz Liszt, Johannes Brahms, Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky, Antonin Dvorák, Richard Strauss, Claude Debussy 

1900-present 20th Century: age of technology 

Music Styles: World Music, Pop Music, Improv

Composers: Béla Bartók, Igor Stravinsky, Duke Ellington, Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein
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If this doesn't help, I've broken down some of the popular units that may be studied and added some musical compositions/composers that could be incorporated:

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Science:

Astronomy- Gustav Holst: The Planets Suite

Animals- Camille Saint-Saëns: Carnival of the Animals

Oceans and Seas-  Henry Kimball Hadley: The Ocean, Camille Saint-Saëns: Carnival of the Animals: Aquarium

Weather/Seasons- Antonio Vivaldi: The Four Seasons

Bugs/Insects- Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov: Flight of the Bumble Bee

Plants- Jonas Forssell: I begynnelsen (The Kingdom of Plants),

            Lakmé: The Flower Duet (BBC Concert Orchestra),

              Don Quixote: Flower Waltz

Historical Events and People:

Westward Expansion- Aaron Copland

1941 Seige of Leningrad- Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony No. 7 in C major, Op. 60

Duke of Wellington- Ludwig van Beethoven: Wellington's Victory

War of 1812- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: 1812 Overture

Ottoman Empire- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Marche Slave

Hiroshima- Krzysztof Penderecki: Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima

Mount St. Helens- Alan Hovhaness: Symphony No. 50

Creation- Joseph Haydn: The Creation

I'd love to have comments on any others you can think of!! This is definitely not an exhaustive list!

Some books and sites I've found helpful:

The Story of the Orchestra 

The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra

Sergei Prokofeiv's Peter and the Wolf  

Carnival of the Animals 

Meet the Orchestra 

Tubby the Tuba

The Nutcracker: Based on the Classic Story by E.T.A. Hoffmann

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Classical Pieces that Mark Historical Events (thread) 

Greg's Science Song Music (just for fun)

Classical Music Lapbook (squidoo.com)

Coloring Planet 

Essentials of Music