Showing posts with label Music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Music. Show all posts

Sunday 21 July 2019

Give Yourself the Gift of Music with Piano Online {Review}

I grew up with the sound of my mother playing the piano and it's an instrument I've always wanted to learn to play.  Fifteen years ago we bought an upright piano and my oldest two and I enrolled in piano lessons.  A few months into lessons I developed severe morning sickness and could not continue with my lessons.  Recently the Homeschool Review Crew were presented the opportunity to review the Music & Creativity - Foundation Course by Simply Music sparked the desire to learn to play the piano again.

The Music & Creativity Course is an on line course presented by Neil Moore the Founder and Executive Director of Simply Music.  Neil developed the Simply Music program and has been teaching music for over twenty seven years. Simply Music uses a playing based education to teach playing the piano.



What we received
Enrolment into the Music & Creativity Program Level One.  This level is FREE for anyone to enrol and use.  Simply Music have made this in celebration of all the students that have learnt to play the piano with them.

It included:
  • Reference Books
  • Practise PDF
  • All backing Soundtracks - these can be downloaded or streamed for use as you practise and learn.
  • Music and the Art of Long-Term Relationships

Enrolling in the Music & Creativity Program is so easy.  I didn't need to enter any payment details.  All they asked for were my name, email address and password.  Within minutes I received my welcome email and immediate access to the program.

How It Works
While using Simply Music approach the pieces of music are from a variety of genre's such as contemporary, classical, gospel, blues, improvisation, accompaniment.  You learn from the beginning to play with both hands.
 Upon logging in you are taken to the Music and Creativity Program home page.  Here you can see at a glance which course you are currently enrolled in and how far you have progressed through the program as well as available courses to purchase in order to continue your piano music education.

At present there are two courses available: Foundation Course and Foundation Enhancement.  There are four Development levels and four Special Courses (Accompaniment, Composition & Improvisation, Arrangements and  Blues & Improvisation) being developed.

The course home page contains the option of downloading the PDF practise and reference books as well as a ZIP file containing the Soundtracks.  Below that you can see the Course Content.


 There are 19 lessons and a Quick start lesson. Upon completing a lesson you mark it complete and the system will auto track the where you are.  A no entry sign indicates that the lesson is not unlocked due to the previous lesson remaining incomplete.


Once you click through to your lesson you are taken to a page with an embedded video lesson where Neil teaches the lesson and takes you step by step through different pieces of music.  He does a great job of explaining step by step the notes, your hands and how to play the piece of music and how you are to practise.

You then practise what you have learnt using the sound track for that weeks lessons.  You can re-watch the lesson as many times as you would like. Once you have reached a level that you are happy and comfortable with you manually mark the lesson complete.  The system will then unlock the next lesson for you to begin and take you there.

You can watch the lessons on any Internet connected device.  I have watched them on my computer, a tablet and my phone.

This is my favourite piece of advice from Neil.  He is an encouraging teacher and puts no pressure on you the student.  He recognises that some learn slower and others learn faster and the most important thing is to learn at your OWN UNIQUE pace.

He explains to the students that every single time you sit down to practise you are learning and if you rush and practise wrong you will have to unlearn the mistake and relearn correctly and it is therefore prudent to SLOW down and teach yourself correctly the first time.

Simply Music Methodology

Neil explains - "The usual entry into learning piano is a 'reading-based' approach. In other words, students are first required to learn how to read music as the means of learning how to play. Although some students succeed with this approach, for the vast majority the reading process can feel unnatural and slow and end with the feeling that "music is not for me" or, "it's hard" or, "It takes a long time" or, "I don't have any musical talent or ability" etc.

Our 'playing-based' approach is based on a different premise. We say that everybody, without exception, is profoundly musical. Pretty much everything that we all do, on a moment-by-moment, day-to-day basis, is underscored by our musicality - this includes the rhythm of our heartbeat and our breathing, the perfectly smooth and even rhythm of our walking, as well as our ability to talk. In fact, conversation consists of spoken sentences and phrases of astonishing musical complexity, yet speaking comes easily and naturally to us all. In fact, it's our innate connection to musicality that gives us the ability to talk.

The Simply Music Method draws on and nurtures the natural sense of music we all possess; it teaches students to play the piano by immersing them in the actual process of playing. In the early stages of learning with Simply Music, music-reading is delayed. "

Important Notes/Format

This is an on line product, including video-based instruction, down loadable soundtracks, and three pdf documents.


Connect on Social Media

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 If you would prefer face to face lessons with a teacher Simply Music has many trained teachers in 12 different countries around the world using their system of teaching music.  Find a teacher near you via the Simply Music Educator Location page.

Neil recently shared that Simply Music currently has students enrolled from a 100 countries around the world.

Overall

This program is very different from any program I have ever tried.  Neil is both the developer and the presenter of the program.  He is encouraging and clearly communicates each step of the course and helps you to understand the how and why of what he is doing.  You can learn more about the philosophy and the beginnings of Simply Music on their site as well as meet the staff who are working to support you on line.

I am looking forward to continuing my lessons and have encouraged Paul to begin lessons with Neil.

To find out what my fellow home educating Mom's and their families thought be sure to take a look at more reviews  at the Homeschool Review Crew.


PS:  Did you know the piano contains over 12,000 parts?

Monday 27 July 2015

Joseph Haydn {Composer Study - Poppins Book Nook}

This months theme for the Poppins Book Nook is Composer Study. There are so many wonderful resources available today to make studying the composers a pleasure and and an adventure.  Great Musicians Series from Zeezok Publishing is one of my all time favourite living history resources for introducing famous musicians to my students.

This books are 9 x 7 inches in size and have beautiful line drawings throughout.  They are biographical stories about composers. They share a little background about what's happening in the composers life and then insert the piano music for the piece of music being discussed along with a reference to the companion CD.

We use the companion CD's and it's Nathaniel's job to play the correct track at the moment the piece is introduced. The stories are well written and twaddle free.


Book we used

On YouTube

 On the WWW
On Pinterest

FREE for you
Jill from over at Enchanted Homeschooling Mom has made this FREE Poppins Book Nook pack for you.
  • An official interactive Poppins Book Nook bookmark for this month’s theme
  • This month’s Passport pages to add to your lap book
  • Several lap book elements centered around The Laboratory.
  • Reading response writing prompt

We've enjoyed getting back into Composer Study here and would like to encourage you to explore this wonderful genre of music.

What are your favourite composer study books ? Link up and share your resources with the Poppins Book Nook this month.

In August we will be exploring books that were made into movies.

Blessings
Chareen



Your Poppins Book Nook Co-hosts for 2015 are

#PoppinsBookNook #storybookactivitiesforkids #bookfunforkids #booksforkids
 
Connect with the Poppins Book Nook at
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  2. Facebook
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Wednesday 23 July 2014

Homeschool Piano {Review}

I have always wanted to learn to play the piano. I love hearing melodies being played and gentle worship warms my heart.  My dream is to one day be able to sit at the piano and worship.

We purchased a piano 10 years ago and I started traditional piano lessons which lasted all of two months and then I had to quit as I became to sick to continue (Morning sickness does that sometimes). 

Recently an opportunity presented itself to learn to play the piano with piano teacher Willie from HomeschoolPiano.  For our review we were given  HomeSchoolPiano - Complete Set of Books

What we received
  • All Online Access benefits (unlimited, lifetime access to HomeSchoolPiano.com)
  • Tracking and quizzes for up to 5 students
  • Unlimited lesson streaming to any device
  • Unlimited music downloads
  • Unlimited lesson video downloads
  • Jam Track CD (download version)
  • Core Piano - 33 lessons
  • Book 1 -  6 Units
  • Book 2 - 6 Units
  • Book 3 - 6 Units

Lesson Structure
Homeschool Piano covers six different areas and includes advanced tips as bonus material. It also works with the N

The six areas covered are:
Technique - Willie gives practical advice to help you improve with each lesson
Rhythm - He teaches incidental theory to help you keep in time.
Ear Training - Each lesson helps you learn to hear your music and therefore understand melody, chords and more.
 Reading - Willie encourages you to be patient with yourself and through incremental steps helps you conquer reading music.
Song - The songs you play are loads of fun and make learning the piano something you and your students will want to do.
Imporvisation - Willie encourages you to have fun and be creative. In fact Sir N was so inspired after his first lesson that he sat at the piano for a good half an hour trying to work out a melody he had heard. You can see a clip of him doing so on Instagram.
How we used it

I started off with creating an account with Homeschool Piano.  Once logged in creating a student account was simply a matter of adding their name, user name and password.  Once a student account was created the student then logged in and chose their lesson and continued.  They only have access to their own accounts.  As the main account I had access to all their records as well and could see at a glance their progress.


Once Sir N was  logged in we selected which program to work through. We clicked on the drop down menu Piano Lessons and choose one of four options


CorePiano = absolute beginner
Book 1 = beginner, maybe brushing the dust off and coming back to piano
Book 2 = beginner to intermediate (starts incorporating more complicated concepts, songs and improvisation ideas)
Book 3 = intermediate (toward the end of this book we are getting into concepts like syncopation, voice leading and more advanced scales for improvisation)

Sir N has used a few piano programs over the last year with the crew and he has never been taught by a teacher before I decided to start off with CorePiano for him.  It's been ten years since I had lessons so I too started with CorePiano.


On this page you can see which class you are in on the right beneath where it says:  Where You Left Off. From here you can continue your lesson at the click of one button. Even if you have only completed half the lesson it takes you straight to where you were.
On the left you have the option of choosing the page your lesson is on or clicking straight on a selected lesson shown below. The advantage of this is that you can review a lesson as many times as you would like.
 Below the Where You Left Off box is the resource box. Here you will find your music book to download and print for the set of lessons you are working through.

Once we printed off our book I had it ring bound at Office Works with a plastic cover for durability.

Records

As you can see the tracking of classes is quite comprehensive.  You can select your students name and see at a glance how far they worked through the lesson.  No cheating here the records speak quiet clearly of just how much the student has done in each lesson.  You can see the name of the lesson, date started, how much of the lesson was watched and the date completed.

The Lessons
One of the things we've enjoyed the most about Homeschool Piano is that it streams to any mobile device.  We have streamed our lessons to my Samsung Galaxy S3 phone,  Galaxy Tab and our home television.

It's so portable and easy to use.  Sir N loves to watch his lessons on our television.  We both have enjoyed seeing our lessons in larger  than life size. 

The lesson  screen is divided into three areas.
The top of the screen is a digital keyboard that highlights the note being played in red and gives the note name above it.
The middle area is a live view of Willie's keyboard showing a live feed of his instruction
The bottom left shows an insert of Willie from the side and from here he teaches you his student.

We would watch our lesson on the television and get an over view of the lesson.  Then move to the piano and take the tablet with us and redo the lesson with practical hands on at the piano.

Initially I thought we would work through a lesson a day but since starting our music journey with Willie we have moved considerably slower as Sir N has struggled to use both hands together at the piano.  Since we have lifetime access to Homeschool Piano there is no pressure to get to the next level in order to complete our lesson.  This is something I have come to really appreciate in the program. Sir N is able to watch the lessons over and over until he fully comprehends what he is learning. He can simply watch them for fun outside of our official music time slot.

There is no fear we are going to run out of download.  We can pause the video at any point and apply what is being taught.

Cost of Homeschool Piano**
The cost is $299.00 for the complete program with two payment options
  • A single payment of $299.00
    Unlimited life-time access to HomeSchoolPiano along with all bonuses (downloads, jam tracks, sheet music) for up to 5 students
  • Payment plan -  $99.97 per month for three months.
    Unlimited life-time access to HomeschoolPiano along with all bonuses (downloads, jam tracks, sheet music) for up to 5 students
**All prices are correct at time of review.  The vendor reserves the right to change the price without notice.  Please check all prices before purchasing.

Recommended Age Range
This product is for use with all ages.  If your student is old enough to sit and be tutored and follow directions then they can begin lessons with Willie.  The best part with life time access is you can repeat any lesson as often as you like.

Willie is an excellent teacher and explains as he goes along and as an adult learning to play I have enjoyed all my lessons with him.

Connect with Willie at Homeschool Piano

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Here are some really helpful articles by Willie



Final Thoughts
Sir N loves Willie's sense of humour and his passion for playing the piano is infectious.  Sir N is also practical in his approach to learning so Willies practical suggestions have been very helpful for him.  We have been loving our music journey with Willie and are looking forward to growing in our ability to play the piano.

Blessings
Chareen

Click to read Crew Reviews

Saturday 5 July 2014

Experience History Through Music {Review}

A few years ago I had the wonderful pleasure of meeting Diana Waring and her amazing family over in New Zealand.  In fact the whole family blessed our home education community with a weekend long home education conference. Diana, Bill and their children shared insights to get Beyond Survival in our homeschooling experiences. It was the very first home school conference I ever attended.  Over the years I have been encouraged and inspired by Diana and Bill and was really excited to hear that Experiencing History Through Music was coming back into publication!

The Experiencing History Through Music series was the first curriculum series that Diana produced back in the early 90's.  The series was born out of her convention workshops in 1989. Sometime in the mid 90's this curriculum went out of publication due to a series of unfortunate events and seemed to have been lost for good.  Unbeknown to Diana the Lord had been working to bring about restoration and making a way for it to be restored. You can read the full story of how it all came together over at Diana's blog.

The time has now come and all THREE books have been updated been reprinted.  All three CD's have been digitally remastered and are now available for purchase!  I have had the privileged to be a part of a group of wonderful home school families that have been using the books and CD's over the last month. 

What we received

  • Experience History Through Music contains 3 book/CD sets. As the name of this series implies, these book and CD sets allow you to Experience History Through Music
  • Each title contains one book and one CD. The pages of the books hold dozens of historical pictures; bright and interesting stories connecting each of the songs to its moment in history, even sheet music and chord charts! 
  • The CDs are rousing , professional recordings that draw in all listeners. The two combine for fond memories and a grand, knee-slapping good time.



How we used it

Recently Sir N and I have been thoroughly enjoying The Little House book series via audio book from our local library.  It's been so much fun to listen to the families adventures and learn about all the amazing skills that Pa and Ma had.  Wow they did some amazing things on their ten year pioneering move across the USA.  The particular audio books we are listening to have had someone play the fiddle at each part of the book that describes Pa playing his fiddle.


When our books arrived we decided to work our way through Musical Memories of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Oh my we have had such a wonderful time exploring.

Details 

  • The book is a softcover.
  • 56 pages
  • Written and Edited by William Anderson
  • Photographs by Leslie A. Kelly
  • ISBN 978-1-930514-49-2
  • Covers 13 songs (see a list here)
  • Back ground stories to each song along with photograph
  • Sheet music for each song

Contributors

The CD comes in a plastic sleeve which is glued into the back of the cover of the book. This is a good thing so that the CD and book stay together and there is no risk of me misplacing them!  The beautiful music on the CD has been digitally remastered and is excellent quality.  You can here the words clearly on each song.  We took this CD in the car to listen to while running errands and listened to it at home while doing chores or just simply visiting with friends.  Sir N's favourite track is track number one: Wait for the Wagon. He has enjoyed the music so much he has asked me to add it to his iPod shuffle.


We took some time each week to look up the back story for each piece of music.  Here is a sample from Wait for the Wagon.  Each back story is approximately five minutes of reading and gives you some interesting information on the topic at hand.  The photographs enrich all the stories and take you on a journey to the time of Laura and her family.  There are photographs of paintings, historical buildings, homesteads, historical photographs and family photographs. It's been good to see the actual people from the books and samples of the things spoken about in the books.

All three books from the series follow the same format as Musical Memories of Laura Ingals Wilder.  One of the neat things about the back stories is being able to answer Sir N's questions about the songs.  Instead of saying I don't know I now say lets look it up!

Cost
  • America  $18.99
  • Westward Ho! $18.99
  • Musical Memories of Laura Ingals Wilder $18.99
Deal alert!
Hurry…this deal ends July 31.



About the Author
Diana Waring is the author of Beyond Survival, Reaping the Harvest and Diana Waring’s History Revealed world history curriculum.

She discovered years ago that “the key to education is relationship.” Beginning in the early ’80s, Diana homeschooled her children through high-school—the real life opportunities to learn how kids learn. Mentored by educators whose focus was honoring Him who created all learners, and with an international background (born in Germany, university degree in French, lifelong student of world history),

Diana cares about how people learn as well as what they learn. Audiences on four continents have enthusiastically received her energetic speaking style.

For those of you who would like to know more about Diana you can read a full author interview over at Crystal Starr and Ben and Me. 

Connect with Diana

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What we thought
We are thoroughly enjoying our Experience of History Through Music! We have grown a love for and appreciation for life in days gone by.  The books and songs have enriched our lives beyond measure.  I have been delightfully surprised at how many of the songs I know from singing them in my childhood.  I am delighting in watching Sir N enjoying learning the songs and  snuggling on the couch together reading about the stories behind the songs that we are now learning.


Blessings
Chareen


Thank you Diana for blessing our family with this wonderful resource and giving us an oportunity to review these products.