Please take a minute to visit the newest sponsor of Piano Teacher’s Retreat, Animusic.  You can see their ad over there on the right —->

Animusic’s DVDs provide a fresh and exciting way to illustrate musical concepts and to inspire students about artistic creativity. The first DVD has 7 unique music animations and the second one has 8. Each animation lasts about 4 or 5 minutes, so you can show one then discuss, or fill a whole class by showing several.

Words don’t really do justice, you simply have to watch Animusic.  See a video clip here:

 (Note: video and sound quality are far better on the actual DVDs)

The visuals and the music are precisely matched, revealing many details about pitch, rhythm, melody, instrumentation and more.

For example, using the video above – “Pipe Dream” – you could discuss pitch and ask which instruments are creating high pitches and which ones create low pitches. And are there some instruments that are NOT pitched?   Also in Pipe Dream, ask about the rhythm or “pulse” of the piece…it’s not immediately obvious what it is, but as the piece progresses students should be able to clap along with the beat.

Music teachers at all grade levels have shown these unique videos. To help guide class discussion and activities there are “Teacher Tips” in PDF format that are free to print.

These guides were prepared by music teachers and correlate with items 6, 7, and 8 of the National Standards for Music Education.

And perhaps best of all, students really enjoy seeing and hearing novel instruments.

Private piano teacher Gregory Brown from Five Smooth Stones Music has also found the DVDs helpful.  “I actually use Animusic to assist in teaching rhythm to my beginning piano students. There is some type of motion or movement to correspond to EVERY sound that you here.  I cannot emphasize to you how helpful that is to a 7 year old.”

The videos on the Animusic DVDs have original instrumental music, which spans a variety of musical (and visual) styles. There is also one version of a classical piece, “Pictures at an Exhibition” by Muggorsky.

The DVDs are currently on sale at www.animusic.com – and schools may also buy the DVDs with purchase orders through educational stores such as West Music and MusicK8.com.

I checked out the DVD, The Great Composers: Beethoven from “Films for the Humanities and Sciences” from my library, hoping to find something to recommend to my students.  It was a quick film- only 28 minutes, and it gave great insight into and historic facts about several of his pieces, including Moonlight Sonata, The Pastoral Symphony, Symphony No. 9, and more. 

I really enjoyed it, but I don’t think I will share it with any of my students.  Most of my students are still young and have only been taking lessons for a few years.  The dialogue was a little dull and the vocabulary and subject matter was rather advanced.  However, I loved what I was able to learn, and I am glad I watched the DVD.  I will now be able to share what I learned with my students.  I plan on checking out all the other DVD’s in the series.  The film is from “Films Media Group,” and you can visit their website here.

Do you have a favorite DVD about a composer?  I would love to know!