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MarilynW
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I would love to hear from anyone who is using this. Do you like it? Is it worth the $? How do you use it - do you do it as a single year course, or use it to correspond to history periods studied each year?
Other things I am considering using for high school music appreciation/music history:
- Teaching Company - How to Listen To and Understand Great Music
- Classical Music Start Up Kit 1 and 2 - Naxos
- The Classical Music Experience - Julius Jacobson
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Marilyn
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Mackfam
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Discovering Music: 300 Years of Interaction in Western Music, Arts, History and Culture by Professor Carol Reynolds
We use it and love it! It is a part of our Morning Basket.
We complete one unit a week, and we are set to finish the program mid-year, when we plan to pick up Professor Carol's other series, Exploring America's Musical Heritage. I use it as a high school music history course, but it appeals to a wide range of ages. It would work best with 5th grade+, but my 3rd grader enjoys watching sometimes. Professor Carol is informative and engaging! This is a fantastic series, and frankly, I'd watch her water her garden on DVD - she's so captivating and engaging with such a fantastic grasp of western culture!
Studying it this year, it does not coordinate with the historical period we are studying, but gives a fantastic birds eye view of western culture, and as such that context is valuable no matter the period of history being studied. I am looking forward to the series on America's Musical Heritage because that will coordinate with our studied period of history and I see it fitting quite nicely!
Here is how we use it:
Day 1: Watch 1/2 of the Unit on DVD. Narrate.
Day 2: Watch second half of the Unit on DVD. Narrate.
Day 3: Book of Century Work from people & events on DVD Unit. Listening day 1.
Day 4: Listening day 2: A list of musical works are provided as part of each unit. We find them in itunes or from our classical music selection and listen.
Day 5: Web research - websites for further research are provided as part of the Unit.
There is usually much discussion each day, throughout the day. This is informal, but has prompted some very rich discussions. EXCELLENT program for middle or high school students. We HIGHLY recommend it!
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Jen Mackintosh
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Wildflowers and Marbles
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Erica Sanchez
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Jen,
Did you purchase the complete package or just the DVDs?
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Have a beautiful and fun day!
Erica in San Diego
(dh)Cash, Emily, Grace, Nicholas, Isabella, Annie, Luke, Max, Peter, 2 little souls ++, and sweet Rose who is legally ours!
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MarilynW
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| Posted: Aug 04 2012 at 6:29pm | IP Logged
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Thanks Jen.
How long is one unit on the DVD?
I echo Erica's question too - do you have to buy the entire set? Are there any extras that are required/recommended?
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Marilyn
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Mackfam
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The units vary in length. In the front of the Resource Book (p. xvi) there is a helpful listing of each Disc and the Units on each disc, listing their names and play length. This is helpful for planning. The shortest is around 25 min long, and the longest is an hour. There is a full range in between those times. Some are short enough to view the DVD in one sitting, others are better if spread over a couple of days. Also, some units have a lot of potential for exploring, so sometimes we take one week per unit, and sometimes we take two weeks.
I think for planning purposes, the entire course comfortably fills a year. There are 17 Units, and the DVD's have a total of 13 hours of play-time. We spread ours out over three terms, starting the last term of last year, and we will take two terms of this year to finish it.
Erica Sanchez wrote:
| Did you purchase the complete package or just the DVDs? |
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I ordered the full package and I'm glad that I did. The full package comes with:
8 DVD's
3 Listening CD's
1 coursebook
We view the DVD's and I would consider these essential. The listening CD's are nice as well, though we like to include more from the composers she speaks of in the series, so we generally go to itunes for more works from a composer or a period. The resource book/coursebook is something I thought I wouldn't have a use for, but I love it! It is very useful in fleshing out the units as we progress through the week. The resource book is layed out in a way that makes it very easy to use with the unit since the resource book Units coordinate with the DVD Units.
** I really like the way it very simply lists figures, places and dates in a section, giving a short blurb on each. These are the same figures, places and dates that were discussed on the DVD for that Unit, and the resource book makes it easy for reference when the children go to their BOC.
** The vocabulary has been nice for us, and we just use these for review throughout the week - I don't do anything formal with this.
** I LOVE the websites section. All the work is done for me! To extend and further build or research a particular unit, Prof. Carol has listed a nice group of websites which coordinate with each Unit. And, it facilitates independent work because I can have the children research using the website recommendations and then just narrate their findings to me later. This has worked very well for us. Important Note: Each family may have different rules/views on use of internet for research! Prof. Carol is clear in the front of the resource book, and I would echo, that a great deal of art history is centered on the human body, and as such there are some depictions of the human body in the suggested website research section. This hasn't been a problem for our family because this has naturally been incorporated as a part of our art studies over the years, in as sensitive a way as possible. Having said that, it's important to note this if your family has not been viewing art which may feature the human body. You would probably want to preview sites first. I just wanted to be clear on that so that it could factor into your consideration. ** The *Putting It All Together* questions and projects have been enjoyable for me to read through. Sometimes they prompt ideas which translate into invitations from me to the kids, inviting them to pursue an idea. And sometimes they just give me great context for beginning a discussion with the kids. I've enjoyed them.
** I don't really use the Viewing Guides, which are essentially a set of fill-in-the-blank questions and answers based on the DVD viewing of the Unit. These could be used as quizzes though. Nor do I use the Unit Quizzes found at the back of the book, but they are provided if you're interested in those.
Hope this is a further help as you consider this course, gals! 
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Jen Mackintosh
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Wildflowers and Marbles
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Mackfam
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Oh...I forgot to say that Prof. Carol emailed a pdf of the Teacher's Manual to me after I ordered...but I never use it. Maybe I should print it and take a look!
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Jen Mackintosh
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Mackfam
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Officially serial posting now. 
I also wanted to mention that Professor Carol's site was extremely informative and helpful to me as I considered this program. One of the most helpful features I found were the different ways she suggests you could use the program. That helped me see how flexible the program could be, and that it could even be flexible in terms of how I use it from week to week!
I don't think I follow any of the suggested ways to use the program exactly, but I wanted to point it out because it helped me visualize how this could work across ages, within a family, and across different weeks with varying levels of fullness.
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Jen Mackintosh
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MarilynW
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Thanks for the serial posting Jen. So much useful information. It is a big ticket item for my budget but I see us using it for a while. I have a couple of other questions for you:
1. I am still planning on doing my regular composer study (which is also part of our hive time) - I don't think this will be overkill with Discovering Music - as DM seems more an art history than art appreciation?
2. Did you buy directly from Professor Carol or from someone else like Emmanuel Books/Rainbow/Sacred Heart BG? Does it matter?
Thanks so much.
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Mackfam
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MarilynW wrote:
Thanks for the serial posting Jen. So much useful information. It is a big ticket item for my budget but I see us using it for a while. I have a couple of other questions for you:
1. I am still planning on doing my regular composer study (which is also part of our hive time) - I don't think this will be overkill with Discovering Music - as DM seems more an art history than art appreciation? |
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I would say that DM is both art history and art appreciation because of the great and varied places Prof. Carol takes you to through the videos. In thinking about it, we've really come to appreciate art through the DVD series and the various units. That being said, we still do our short lessons studying our composer (one per term), and listening to their music during the term.
MarilynW wrote:
| 2. Did you buy directly from Professor Carol or from someone else like Emmanuel Books/Rainbow/Sacred Heart BG? Does it matter? |
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I have no idea if it matters. I bought directly through Professor Carol's website.
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Jen Mackintosh
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Wildflowers and Marbles
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MarilynW
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MarilynW wrote:
as DM seems more an art history than art appreciation?
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Jen - I had meant "MUSIC history and MUSIC appreciation!!!" But you made me think that it covers art as well, which will be great. We are doing our regular picture study (one artist per term - we have 4 terms)and my Grade 12 dd is wanting to do an art history and art appreciation course. I was going to use some Teaching Co dvds, the Annotated Mona Lisa and a few other resources - but Discovering Music will probably be good for art history too. I need to spend some time on Professor Carol's website.
Thanks again for your help.
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Marilyn
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MaryM
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Just got a message through our local group that there is a $40 off coupon code through the end of the month.
Now save $40 on Discovering Music (our best conference price). Use the promo code "westernculture."
Offer good through 8/31/12
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MarilynW
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MaryM wrote:
Just got a message through our local group that there is a $40 off coupon code through the end of the month.
Now save $40 on Discovering Music (our best conference price). Use the promo code "westernculture."
Offer good through 8/31/12 |
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Thank you so much Mary. I was just about to order. 
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Marilyn
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CrunchyMom
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Homeschool Buyers Co-op is running a Group Buy for this program right now!
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Lindsay
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IMO, the Teaching Company professor grates on you after a while. We liked him for the first 15 lectures or so. (We also listened to his Composition and Beethoven lectures). But we couldn't force ourselves to watch any longer than that. While his material was solid, he couldn't help himself throwing in se*ual material that wasn't necessary to the topic.
Professor Carol doesn't cover the breath of material, but I found her quite engaging. Some of the lectures were down-right entertaining. She is coming out with a Church Chant or something like that later this summer. I am watching for that one.
Blessings,
Stephanie
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pumpkinmom
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CrunchyMom wrote:
| Homeschool Buyers Co-op is running a Group Buy for this program right now! |
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Does anyone know if this discount will be offered again or just a one time offer? This is on my wishlist, but not for another year or more.
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Cassie
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JennGM
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pumpkinmom wrote:
CrunchyMom wrote:
| Homeschool Buyers Co-op is running a Group Buy for this program right now! |
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Does anyone know if this discount will be offered again or just a one time offer? This is on my wishlist, but not for another year or more. |
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It seems to come up annually, although the cost of the program, even on sale, is going up. The last time the sale ran it was about $100. I'm in the same boat, I don't have need for it right now because my children are younger.
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Jennifer G. Miller
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4Real Forums : The Arts in the Everyday
Topic: Discovering Music (Carol Reynolds)
