100 books like Teaching Music to Children

Listen to the Birds is part of the series An Introduction to Classical Music. Author Ana Gerhard chooses a different theme for each book and then puts together a collection of songs by various composers which is related to that theme. What a great idea! The included CD only gives you excerpts from the pieces, but that is probably because it is meant as an “intro” to classical music for a younger audience with a shorter attention span. I would recommend despite this downside, since further listening can always be done separately from the book if the readers are interested to hear more.

This is a great little book for introducing younger readers to their first pieces of classical music. Although it is meant for a younger audience, there are many anecdotes that slightly older readers will also enjoy. The accompanying music is available in both a CD and an online version. The recordings are from Naxos which has an excellent music library of top-notch performances. A great value!

This book is from a series of books entitled Getting to Know the World’s Greatest Composers, which features many different composers. The books are easy to read and will be enjoyed by both younger readers and older readers alike. The cartoon-style artwork may look silly, but the material is informative. Music education would not be complete without some information on the composers who wrote the music. A great series!

In the Once Upon a Masterpiece series, author Anna Harwell Celenza tells the stories behind various classical music masterpieces. She does so in an engaging way for children ages 6-9. I love how she is a musicologist and uses documented evidence to tell the story behind the piece. The illustrations incorporate folk art and symbols from the composer’s country. The author includes multiple links so that readers can listen to each masterpiece.

This book comprehensively addresses a wide range of topics geared toward teen music students, from the foundations of practicing and understanding theory to working with a teacher and parents, playing in an orchestra, or planning a music career. Although some of the topics are useful for any musician (such as practice ideas and improving one’s musicality), this book is best for guiding adolescents on a musical path.

Booth wrote this book to be a complete guide for musicians seeking to expand their careers by offering educational concerts and in-school residencies, but the unusual title is likely a subtle reference to “lessons” that challenge widely accepted assumptions in the world…of music performance.

Open to any chapter to read important, focused information on designing a compelling educational concert, but it doesn’t take long to come shocking statements like “being a teaching artist makes you a better artist” (is it possible?) or a demand that we answer the question “why an inner-city fifth grader should give a damn about Mozart” (you mean they don’t?).

Whether Booth is astutely defining the difference between entertainment and art, exploring the importance of good questioning, or reminding us how play is essential to learning and growth, the nuggets of teaching wisdom embedded in these pages are worth their weight in gold.

The Listening Book is about rediscovering the power of listening as an instrument of self-discovery and personal transformation. By exploring our capacity for listening to sounds of music, nature, and one’s own breathing, we can awaken and release our full creative powers. Mathieu guides the reader to hearing the connections between all sounds of music and everyday life. It is insightful and surprising to notice what is around us at any moment of the day and apply this heightened awareness to understanding and connecting with music listening or performance. This awareness can be neglected but applicable to connecting our inner soul with the outside world and to life. Brilliant illuminations from a genius composer, musician and teacher W.A. Mathieu. 

For anyone who is performing at any level really, this book will help them enhance their performance and manage the stress that sometimes seems to appear in the performance situation. The book looks at ways to approach the music that we have decided to perform a variety of practice strategies and some particularly interesting techniques for all-around improvement taking in both the physical side of playing and the musical side. It’s a serious and quite academic book but well worth the effort.

The title clearly outlines the premise of the book, and it delivers what it promises.

Although these essays are related to teaching and learning music, the overarching principles are applicable to the development of any skill. Duke challenges any approach that would promote difficult over beautiful, or fast over meticulous, championing music teaching itself as an art.

We’ve read this book dozens of times, used it as a text for classes over the past 25 years, and included it on every suggested reading list that has anything to do with teaching and learning. If a reader takes time to deeply consider the messages in this book and put the recommended strategies into practice, the efficiency and effectiveness of every lesson will improve. 

Psychotherapist and string teacher Edmund Sprunger addresses the complex challenges parents face when trying to help their children learn.

Violin is the subject matter here, but it’s not a stretch to transfer his understanding to virtually any other learning situation (piano lessons, math assignments, baseball practice, etc). It’s also easy to replace “Helping Parents Practice” with “Helping Mature Students Practice” and “Helping Teachers Teach” because the wisdom in this book is so universal.

What makes us lose patience with the learning process? Or why, when we try to please others, we feel like it’s never enough? Sprunger teaches us how to recognize and respond to underlying issues—often tangled up with the love we desire and deserve or don’t deserve—to discover a more internally-motivated and peaceful way to learn.