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kristacecilia
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I am trying to decide between these two music programs, any thoughts, input, suggestions, experience would be appreciated!
Especially I would love to hear about the differences or similarities between the two programs.
Making Music Praying Twice
Our Musical Year
I had planned to purchase MMPT, with the cost is keeping me from taking the plunge. OMY is significantly less expensive!
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God bless,
Krista
Wife to a great guy, mom to two boys ('04, '06) and three girls ('08, '10, '12!)
I blog at http://kristacecilia.wordpress.com/
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SeaStar
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I have OUr Musical Year, Level 1, and we have used it for two years. We have grown very fond of several of the songs.
The only thing I don't like about the program is that the two cds that came with it are both instrumental only- no one is singing-, so I have to sit down ahead of time and figure out how the words correlate to the music. That is not hard for hymns and songs I know, but for unfamiliar tunes I have found it challenging at times. It takes me awhile for each new song and sometimes stops me from using the program more often.
I find that more and more I am using the music from the Cat Chat musical cd
(great songs) and cds from CHC. "Let the Children Come to Me" has a great song about St. Tarcisius, and the " Bible Prayer Songs " cd has the Apostle's Creed set to music that we really like, also a catchy song about St. Joseph.
FOr me, it is much easier to hear the kids singing and sing along than only hear the instrumental tracts.
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Melinda, mom to ds ('02) and dd ('04)
SQUILT Music Appreciation
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kristacecilia
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Thanks! Are the songs fairly well known?
We have the Let the Children Come to Me CD and don't care for it much at all.
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God bless,
Krista
Wife to a great guy, mom to two boys ('04, '06) and three girls ('08, '10, '12!)
I blog at http://kristacecilia.wordpress.com/
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SeaStar
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| Posted: April 04 2011 at 7:54pm | IP Logged
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The songs in OMY are a mix of hymns, songs like Hot Cross Buns, John Grey,
Polly Put the Kettle On, etc and original songs written for seasonal use.
There is one about Christopher Columbus that my dc love- I have no idea if we are singing it right, but we fit all the words in  . I have a really hard coordinating the words to unfamiliar tunes.
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Melinda, mom to ds ('02) and dd ('04)
SQUILT Music Appreciation
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kristacecilia
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| Posted: April 04 2011 at 8:05pm | IP Logged
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I wonder if you could google the song and hear it online somewhere so you know? I did see that lots of their songs are 'unique', so I guess if that is one of the unique ones you don't really know.
Does it come with the sheet music for each song?
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God bless,
Krista
Wife to a great guy, mom to two boys ('04, '06) and three girls ('08, '10, '12!)
I blog at http://kristacecilia.wordpress.com/
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Mackfam
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| Posted: April 04 2011 at 10:44pm | IP Logged
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Krista,
I thought we had talked about this music program more, but I guess not. I did find a few older threads for you to look through.
We have been using Our Musical Year for about 8 years now. It meets our needs well, so I haven't looked around at other music programs, but clearly many people (like Lindsay/CrunchyMom...who IS a music person) really like Making Music, Praying Twice so I'm certain it is a very good program! I'll give you an idea of how we use this program and why we like it.
As I mentioned in another thread, this year I delegated music instruction for the littles to my oldest daughter, so she does most of this coordinating now, but for the sake of the review, I'll write as if I'm still setting the music time up. (I have the most precious memories of my oldest (now 14) learning as my first when she was 7, the Adoro Te Devote, with this program.  <-- time flies...but in a good way!!!)
** I like the way the program and book is divided up according to the Liturgical Year! Each month has a heavy cardstock divider page that helps you plan/coordinate your month of music. The month's song choices reflect both the liturgical season as well as the monthly dedication (so May is the month of Our Lady and there are songs for Her this month)! I just flip to the appropriate month and I choose one or two songs we'll work on for that month.
** The monthly cardstock divider page (a different color than the white pages so they stand out and are easy to find...but you can add post-it tabs to help reference the months as well!) looks like this:
MONTHLY DEDICATION LISTED AT TOP
SPECIAL DAYS AND TIMES FOR THAT MONTH (Feast days, holidays)
SONGS FOR THE MONTH LISTED IN A TABLE (includes learning track #, sign along track #, page # in the songbook which coordinate with the song listed.)
TEACHING SUGGESTIONS
** I really appreciate the variety of music offered. Each month has a lovely selection of liturgically appropriate music/hymns as well as some patriotic and seasonal songs for the month.
** There are between 8 and 10 songs for each month. (We only work on 1 - 2 songs a month and that works well for our family...but you could easily do more. The program has remained fresh over the years by proceeding at this relaxed pace.)
** We start by learning the words to a song, reviewing them aloud. Then, we set up the learning CD and sing a line or two with the music on the learning CD. I keep lessons SHORT --> 10 minutes a lesson. We continue working with the learning CD until all the words and the music has been learned and then switch to the sing-along CD music. We strive to do music 2 - 4 times a week. We're content if we can practice only once or twice with the CD, because the kids spontaneously practice throughout the day/week anyway.
** I thought I'd be intimidated at first by not having anyone sing the song for us, but truthfully, we did ok with the program (and I can't read music). Do keep the fact that there is no voice accompaniment in mind with this program though, especially if that is a real need for you!! There are 2 CDs provided - a learning CD which plays the music for the song you're learning at a slower tempo. GREAT for learning!!! The second CD is a sing-along CD which plays the song at the intended tempo and full length (so if there are more than one stanza for a song, the music will be there for the entire song.) BOTH CD's are INSTRUMENTAL ONLY! No voice accompaniment. My daughter can read music, so she does fine in teaching. I, however, do not read music. I just learned by ear and we did fine with the learning CD. The slower tempo is a help.
** Most of the songs are familiar, but some were new to us. I liked that there are many traditional Catholic hymns represented in the offerings.
A sampling of the Childhood Fun songs -- Do Your Ears Hang Low?, Frog Went a Courtin', The Farmer in the Dell
A sampling of the Childhood Instructional songs -- A Child's Grace, Obedient Nell, When Mother Calls (ALL of these are FANTASTIC and my little people love to sing them! I LOVE that they teach virtues/good habits!!!)
A sampling of the Chants -- Acts of Faith, Hope, Love and Contrition, Agnus Dei, Lessons of the Sacred Heart.
A sampling of Hymns -- Morning Offering, I'll Sing a Hymn to Mary, O Queen of the Holy Rosary
A sampling of Patriotic and Holiday/Liturgical Songs -- America, the Beautiful, What Can I Give Him?, Washington and Lincoln
** Each song has music and words on the page, along with additional stanzas below.
** Like the small footprint and ease of use - this program consists of 2 CDs and 1 spiral bound songbook!! The easily contained program can be applied and worked with little to no prep (to me...but adding that I've been using it a number of years so maybe it's just familiar??? still...I don't remember spending that much time prepping, etc., when we first started with it.) I like that it's simple and straightforward so that my daughter can use it with ease.
** I also have the LEVEL 2 of this program (not sure if this is available anywhere anymore ???). This book works/looks/is formatted the same as Level 1, but with different songs that are slightly more difficult for older children to sing. Again, very nice selections of music/song material for this book.
* * *
Our Musical Year is a good music program. I do so appreciate comparing different programs side-by-side, but hopefully with a few reviews on both of these programs you can make an informed choice about what will work best for your family, Krista. By the way, Amazon has some inexpensive used/new copies of this program. It looks like HIGH NOTE SOLUTIONS is revamping/reworking their website - I would definitely recommend calling them first if you're going to order directly through them. Hope this is a help! 
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Jen Mackintosh
Wife to Rob, mom to dd 19 , ds 16, ds 11, dd 8, and dd 3
Wildflowers and Marbles
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kristacecilia
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| Posted: April 05 2011 at 8:33am | IP Logged
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Jen, thanks for such a thorough review! That helped tremendously.
Would you say that OMY is geared for an older crowd? I got the impression that MMPT was for toddlers and preschoolers, and maybe for the early elementary crowd. From your review I get the impression that OMY is ideal for the first grade and older crowd?
Does OMY come with the complete songs in sheet music, then? My 7 year old and I both read music so we'll be okay with that, actually I would prefer that it did- especially if it's around a level 1 piano style sheet music. I have a hard time finding sheet music for my son and he loves to figure out how to play new songs on our big keyboard.
I am also purchasing Linga Angelica (just the CD and songbook) and WeeSing Bible Songs (someone lent it to us and my toddler is smitten with it, plus the song book is ideal for the keyboard-playing son). So between those and OMY, that would be a good variety of music, I think. Would you agree?
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God bless,
Krista
Wife to a great guy, mom to two boys ('04, '06) and three girls ('08, '10, '12!)
I blog at http://kristacecilia.wordpress.com/
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kristacecilia
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| Posted: April 05 2011 at 8:39am | IP Logged
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I just have to say I especially like the sound of the virtue songs and the traditional hymns!
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God bless,
Krista
Wife to a great guy, mom to two boys ('04, '06) and three girls ('08, '10, '12!)
I blog at http://kristacecilia.wordpress.com/
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Mackfam
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| Posted: April 05 2011 at 4:04pm | IP Logged
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kristacecilia wrote:
| Jen, thanks for such a thorough review! That helped tremendously. |
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I'm so glad! Happy it was helpful!
kristacecilia wrote:
| Would you say that OMY is geared for an older crowd? I got the impression that MMPT was for toddlers and preschoolers, and maybe for the early elementary crowd. From your review I get the impression that OMY is ideal for the first grade and older crowd? |
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Our Musical Year (Level 1) works very well from preschool through the elementary years.
kristacecilia wrote:
| Does OMY come with the complete songs in sheet music, then? |
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Yes. My daughter can play the music for the song on the piano/keyboard before a lesson with the music provided.
kristacecilia wrote:
| I am also purchasing Linga Angelica (just the CD and songbook) and WeeSing Bible Songs (someone lent it to us and my toddler is smitten with it, plus the song book is ideal for the keyboard-playing son). So between those and OMY, that would be a good variety of music, I think. Would you agree? |
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Well, I think so....but what you have listed is pretty much EXACTLY what we do for music ...some Wee Sing, Lingua Angelica, a variety of other Catholic children's CDs/music, and Our Musical Year.
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Jen Mackintosh
Wife to Rob, mom to dd 19, ds 16, ds 11, dd 8, and dd 3
Wildflowers and Marbles
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ekbell
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| Posted: April 05 2011 at 6:21pm | IP Logged
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I have both programs.
I found _Our Musical Year_ a bit hard to work with partly because I wasn't completely familiar with the songs (and had a hard time matching the words to the music) and partly because my children weren't ready for that sort of lesson, they were on the young side of the recommended age and tended to go silent when uncertain, listening to me learn without trying themselves.
While _Making Music Praying Twice_ does take prep work, I've found that it's been a great success in our household. First of all, the more detailed instuctions have given me far more confidence in what I'm doing. Secondly the incorporation of movement and instrumental play has been good for my less confident singers (and some of them have even started to sing!).
To sum up MMPT is very good if you are working with very young children (it's aimed at ages from newborn to perhaps grade two) and/or less confident singers as it's designed to ease them into musicality. It's very much the Catholic equivalent to a Kindermusic program.
OMY is focused completely on singing with none of the movement, instrumental or rhythm activities in MMPT but the songs are worthwhile and the singing instuctions good. It's very much the equivalent to a choral singing program when done well.
Both programs provide sheet music.
To tell the truth I'd say that the programs could work reasonably well together. My success with MMPT has caused me to consider adding some of the material from OMY to our music time as we'd like some more variety and after a year of MMPT I feel fairly confident in making my own lessons.
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kristacecilia
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Mackfam wrote:
kristacecilia wrote:
| Jen, thanks for such a thorough review! That helped tremendously. |
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I'm so glad! Happy it was helpful!
kristacecilia wrote:
| Would you say that OMY is geared for an older crowd? I got the impression that MMPT was for toddlers and preschoolers, and maybe for the early elementary crowd. From your review I get the impression that OMY is ideal for the first grade and older crowd? |
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Our Musical Year (Level 1) works very well from preschool through the elementary years.
kristacecilia wrote:
| Does OMY come with the complete songs in sheet music, then? |
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Yes. My daughter can play the music for the song on the piano/keyboard before a lesson with the music provided.
kristacecilia wrote:
| I am also purchasing Linga Angelica (just the CD and songbook) and WeeSing Bible Songs (someone lent it to us and my toddler is smitten with it, plus the song book is ideal for the keyboard-playing son). So between those and OMY, that would be a good variety of music, I think. Would you agree? |
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Well, I think so....but what you have listed is pretty much EXACTLY what we do for music ...some Wee Sing, Lingua Angelica, a variety of other Catholic children's CDs/music, and Our Musical Year. |
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Thank you again for answering all my questions. It's sounding more and more like Our Musical Year will suit our needs (and budget!) very well.
__________________
God bless,
Krista
Wife to a great guy, mom to two boys ('04, '06) and three girls ('08, '10, '12!)
I blog at http://kristacecilia.wordpress.com/
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kristacecilia
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| Posted: April 05 2011 at 7:31pm | IP Logged
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ekbell wrote:
I have both programs.
I found _Our Musical Year_ a bit hard to work with partly because I wasn't completely familiar with the songs (and had a hard time matching the words to the music) and partly because my children weren't ready for that sort of lesson, they were on the young side of the recommended age and tended to go silent when uncertain, listening to me learn without trying themselves.
While _Making Music Praying Twice_ does take prep work, I've found that it's been a great success in our household. First of all, the more detailed instuctions have given me far more confidence in what I'm doing. Secondly the incorporation of movement and instrumental play has been good for my less confident singers (and some of them have even started to sing!).
To sum up MMPT is very good if you are working with very young children (it's aimed at ages from newborn to perhaps grade two) and/or less confident singers as it's designed to ease them into musicality. It's very much the Catholic equivalent to a Kindermusic program.
OMY is focused completely on singing with none of the movement, instrumental or rhythm activities in MMPT but the songs are worthwhile and the singing instuctions good. It's very much the equivalent to a choral singing program when done well.
Both programs provide sheet music.
To tell the truth I'd say that the programs could work reasonably well together. My success with MMPT has caused me to consider adding some of the material from OMY to our music time as we'd like some more variety and after a year of MMPT I feel fairly confident in making my own lessons. |
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Thank you so much for a side-by-side comparison of the two programs. I was really hoping that someone who had both would chime in!
Making Music Praying Twice sounds so lovely and I am sure my preschooler and toddler would love it! It would be so nice to be able to get both, but the more I consider it, the more strongly I feel that it's out of our price range now (...now that I spent so much money on living books for history next year.. )
I think it sounds like they would build on one another very well. I am going to let my friends who love MMPT know that OMY might be a good fit to move on to.
Thanks again, so much. It was very helpful.
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God bless,
Krista
Wife to a great guy, mom to two boys ('04, '06) and three girls ('08, '10, '12!)
I blog at http://kristacecilia.wordpress.com/
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pmeilaen
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Just one other collection of songs you might want to consider is the Beck Family Musical Series. Unfortunately, it's very difficult to find the tapes or CDs. I bought the first set for grades 1, 2, and 3 used and my children really like them. We also own OMY, but don't like the speed of the songs. My children prefer singing along with the Beck Family. Love2learn has a review of it here.
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Eva
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CrunchyMom
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Trying to decide whether to supplement our music this year, and the link to Our Musical Year doesn't work. Does anyone know if they have discontinued? I think they were unavailable for purchase last time I looked (probably around the time this thread was started).
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Lindsay
Five Boys(6/04) (6/06) (9/08)(3/11),(7/13), and 1 girl (5/16)
My Symphony
[URL=http://mysymphonygarden.blogspot.com/]Lost in the Cosmos[/UR
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Mackfam
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It's a home-mom-run-business, Lindsay. I did speak with Laura O'Kelly-Farrell a couple of years ago and their company was in a bit of transition at the time. Life...economy...or other circumstances could have factored in since then, but I don't see OMY listed in any catalogs, nor does their website even load for me today (a temporary problem? or has the company folded?).
You might consider purchasing used through a used book vendor if you are certain that this program fits your needs. Just be sure you get a good description of the two CD's included with the book when you're buying used. I used to be SUPER leery of purchasing used CD's, but have had such good luck both in communicating with vendors and the used CD's they provided that it doesn't bother me at all to consider this anymore. Just mentioning that since I know I used to be very hesitant and you (others) might be as well.
In doing a quick search, I found a website that offers the program (book and 2 CD's....both levels 1 and 2) new, but I've never heard of this site, nor do I have any experience with them - so do your own digging to see if this is some place you'd like to do business!!!
Wish I could be more help! Good luck deciding.
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Jen Mackintosh
Wife to Rob, mom to dd 19, ds 16, ds 11, dd 8, and dd 3
Wildflowers and Marbles
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4Real Forums : The Arts in the Everyday
Topic: MMPT vs. Our Musical Year
