Listening Guides

LISTENING GUIDES

A Note to Parents

These guides have been designed to make listening to classical music easy and enjoyable. Families who follow the Suzuki approach to learning an instrument will already know the value of listening to the music before beginning to learn to play it. I was lucky enough as a young child to be exposed to the sound of classical piano music played by my father, a self-taught pianist, which wafted up the staircase to my bedroom as I fell asleep at night. I am convinced that this experience laid important foundations for life.

We hear a lot about The Mozart Effect (link). Certainly the parents of some of the children I teach have commented very positively on the effect that listening to classical music has on them. They have reported on how much calmer their children are when they listen to it, and how much more relaxed they seem,which is accompanied by heightened concentration and a greater eagerness and enthusiasm.

Those of you who have read 'Wolfgang the Wizard Musician and other young composers' will have learned a little about the childhood and in some cases adolescent years of composers who have since become big names in the world of classical music. To enhance this understanding of their lives it makes sense to want to listen to the kind of music they wrote. Each composer has his own style, which is determined by where they lived, when they lived, who they were, and for whom and/or why they wrote their music. After a while, it does become possible to recognise these different styles and distinguish between the works of different composers.

Listening to classical music for the first time can be a little daunting. But with an understanding of the background to the composers and carefully chosen pieces with a few pointers to listen out for, this task should become easier. Furthermore, the listening extracts need to be relatively short. More importantly still, it is a good idea to keep on listening to the same pieces of music regularly so that they become familiar.

The guides contain some more information about each of the composers in the stories. Listening suggestions are also given. Further information on the purchase of suitable recordings will be provided in the future.