Students at home means families all over Nashville are seeking learning materials – including for music. Nashville Public Radio’s 91Classical has this covered in their new video series Listen With Me. It gives kids a moment to actively listen to music, and even get their creativity flowing.
The videos, available online, use simple images to allow the listener make a quick connection to the music. With a short excerpt of the piece, the scene is set, and then once the imagination is fired up, the piece is played in its entirety.
Some of the music is strongly attached to one image, such as Eric Whitacre’s Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine. The accompanying narration invites participants to draw their own Da Vinci-esque contraption. Others are open to multiple interpretations, like Johann Sebastian Bach’s Partita in E Major.
The themes of the videos allow the listener to emotionally reach beyond the four walls of their living space, while still keeping their social distance. And classical music, with it’s many centuries of repertoire, allows for mental trips through time as well. One example is this recent video, featuring Aaron Copland’s Danza de Jalisco, which the composer wrote while vacationing in Acapulco, Mexico during the 1970s.
The first nine videos of the series are now available on 91Classical.org.
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