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Home Education Magazine
January-February 1998 - Columns
Good Stuff- Rebecca Rupp
The Mozart Effect
In 1993, a pair of researchers at the University of California, Irvine, showed that schoolchildren exposed to as little as ten minutes'-worth of complex classical music - the scientists favored Mozart piano sonatas - showed significant leaps in spatial-temporal reasoning abilities, which is the sort of intelligence that allows people to do jigsaw puzzles and solve geometry problems. This discovery, now known as the "Mozart effect," has since been transposed to a number of other mind-boosting scenarios: music students have been found to have higher IQ and SAT scores than the musically deprived; kids who listen to classical music from an early age display enhanced math and reading skills. Don Campbell, author of The Mozart Effect: Tapping the Power of Music to Heal the Body, Strengthen the Mind and Unlock the Creative Spirit (Avon Books, 1997), claims that Baroque music has a positive effect on everything from dyslexia to post-surgical recovery rates. Listening to Mozart, says Campbell, has also been said to increase the ability to memorize prose passages, poetry, spelling lists, and foreign language vocabulary words.
Campbell, an enthusiastic popularizer of the Mozart effect, has established a resource center devoted to the mind-enhancing effects of music (The Mozart Effect Resource Center) and has published a three-volume CD/cassette set of music selections collectively titled "The Mozart Effect Music for Children." The three CD/cassettes - all totally Mozart - are titled "Tune Up Your Mind" (selections "specially selected to improve intelligence and increase IQ"), "Relax, Daydream, & Draw" ("to inspire creativity and relaxation"), and "Mozart in Motion" (to "explore body movement, motion, and motivation"). The set is available from The Children's Group, 1400 Bayly Street, Suite 7, Pickering, Ontario L1W 3R2, Canada; (905) 831-1142.
While some of the mental feats attributed to Mozart-listening may be exaggerated, the rewards of listening to classical music for its own sake are undeniable. The best introductory classical music series for children now available is Susan Hammond's wonderful "Classical Kids," a multipart audio series which includes Beethoven Lives Upstairs, Mr. Bach Comes to Call, Vivaldi's Ring of Mystery, Tchaikovsky Visits America, Hallelujah Handel, and - for Mozart die-hards - Mozart's Magic Fantasy. Each includes an enchanting story, incorporating both historical information about the featured famous composer and excerpts from the composer's works. In Mr. Bach Comes to Call, for example, our family's favorite, a little girl named Elizabeth is resentfully practicing the piano when Bach himself drops by, accompanied by an entire boys' choir. Bach tells Elizabeth the story of his life (which included twenty children and a prison term) and plays excerpts from the Brandenberg Concertos, the Goldberg Variations, and "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring." In Mozart's Magic Fantasy, a young girl named Sarah stumbles into the world of Mozart's opera, "The Magic Flute," and meets a talking dragon. Available on cassette or CD from The Children's Group (see above) or from Music for Little People (P.O. Box 1720, Lawndale, CA 90260; (800) 727-2233). Individual cassettes cost about $10.95; Cds, $16.95.
Anne Gatti's The Magic Flute (Chronicle Books, 1997) is a picture-book version of the much-loved opera, complete with giant flowers and butterflies, friendly animals, and a prince saving a princess from the wicked Queen of the Night; the book is accompanied by an excellent audio CD. An abbreviated (42-minute-long) video version of the opera for children aged six and up, "Mozart's Magic Flute Story," is available from Music for Little People (see above). It's sung in German, narrated in English, and is visually spectacular. Video versions of "The Magic Flute" (and other Mozart operas) are also available from Opera World, Box 800, Concord, MA 01742; (800) 99-OPERA.
The Music Masters Series (Moss Music Group) also combines biographical information with musical selections by famous composers on audiocassette or CD. There are three different sets in the series, each covering seven composers on six cassette/CDs. Set I includes Bach, Mozart, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Schubert, Schumann and Grieg; Set II, Handel, Beethoven, Haydn, Wagner, Dvorak, Vivaldi, and Corelli; and Set III, Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Strauss, Berlioz, Verdi, Foster, and Sousa. Each cassette/CD is about 40 minutes long and includes some 25 different musical selections, which means that listeners hear only short snippets of each. We found the biographies informational but unappealingly dry, and the musical presentation choppy; other listeners, however, claim that the effect is that of a story set pleasingly to music. Each set costs about $25.00 (cassettes) or $35.00 (CDs); available by mail order from Michael Olaf, P.O. Box 1162, Arcata, CA 95518; (707) 826-1557.
For an account of Mozart's life in print, Ann Rachlin's "Famous Children Series" (Barron's) is a collection of attractively illustrated picture books, describing the lives of famous composers as children. Titles include Bach, Brahms, Chopin, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Schumann, and Tchaikovsky. Mike Venezia has also written a delightful series of short (32-page) musical biographies for young readers. His "Getting to Know the World's Greatest Composers Series" from Childrens Press is illustrated with giggle-provoking little cartoons and (where possible) real-life photographs. Titles include Aaron Copland, Duke Ellington, George Gershwin, George Handel, Igor Stravinsky, Ludwig van Beethoven, Peter Tchaikovsky, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The "Famous Composer Series" by Roland Vernon (Silver Burdett Press) includes several attractive biographies of great musicians, filled with illustrations, reproductions of period artworks, historical facts (in sidebars), and timelines. Titles include Introducing Mozart (1996); other volumes feature Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Gershwin, Stravinsky, Verdi, and Vivaldi. Kathleen Krull's Lives of the Musicians: Good Times, Bad Times (And What the Neighbors Thought) (Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1993), is a collection of short biographies, all in one clever book, of nineteen famous musicians, among them Mozart, Vivaldi, Bach, Beethoven, Verdi, and Tchaikovsky. These are catchy and fascinating; each biography is accompanied by a full-page color portrait of the musician by Kathryn Hewitt. (Readers learn that Mozart's favorite color was red, and that his most expensive possessions were his piano and his pool table.)
Other picture-book biographies of Mozart for young readers include Letters to Horseface, Being the Story of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Journey to Italy 1769-1770, When He Was a Boy of Fourteen (F.N. Monjo; Viking, 1975), the story of Mozart's tour of Italy through a series of chatty letters to his older sister, Nannerl ("the Horseface"); Mozart: Scenes from the Childhood of the Great Composer (Catherine Brighton; Doubleday, 1990); Mozart Tonight (Julie Downing; Simon and Schuster, 1991); Wolferl: The First Six Years of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Lisl Weil; Holiday, 1991); and Young Mozart (Rachel Isadora; Viking, 1997).
Older kids may enjoy David W. Barber's Bach, Beethoven, and the Boys: Music History as It Ought to be Taught (Sound and Vision, 1986), a thoroughly irreverent history of music from the Gregorian chant through modern times. The history is presented primarily through a series of short biographies of famous composers. ("Mozart," Barber writes, "is just God's way of making the rest of us feel insignificant. Whenever you have just composed a piece of music that you think is particularly good, it is humbling to think that Mozart probably wrote a better one when he was nine years old.") Mozart also appears in Barber's When the Fat Lady Sings: Opera History as It Ought to be Taught (Sound and Vision, 1990), which begins with a humorous history of opera in general, followed by accounts of famous operatic composers and their operas, grouped by country of origin. Mozart appears with Haydn and Beethoven under "Teutonic Tunesmiths."
Families of classical beginners may also enjoy The Complete Idiot's Guide to Classical Music by Robert Sherman (Alpha Books, 1997): this is 352 reader-friendly pages long, all of them packed with useful information. (Chapter 1 is titled "If You Know Nothing About Classical Music, Start Here...") The book covers the different varieties of classical music, the instruments of the orchestra, music history, musical terms, and opera, and includes a series of useful appendices with suggestions for building your own classical music library.
For hands-on enthusiasts, The Music Pack by Ron Van der Meer and Michael Berkeley (Alfred A. Knopf, 1994) is a marvelous classical music kit in book form, filled with creative pop-ups, models, and manipulatives. There's a working model of the human larynx, a playable set of strings (with included bow), a working pop-up piano, a pop-up set of drums with miniature drumsticks, and a 75-minute CD with selections from such classical composers as Mozart, Handel, Bach, Haydn, Schubert, Berlioz, Chopin, Brahms, and Wagner. It's pricey (list price is around $50), but its's superb. Bellerophon Books (36 Ancapa Street, Santa Barbara, CA 93101; (800) 253-9943) publishes an inexpensive coloring book titled Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, which pairs black-line illustrations of scenes from the composer's life with an informational text. Zephyr Press offers Musicians: Exploring Music Through the Study of Six Great Lives by Chris Brewer, an activity book for kids in grades 2-6 based on the life stories of six famous composers (Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Debussy, and Copeland), with related musical activities and hands-on projects.
For game players, the Composers Card Game is a rummy-style game in which players attempt to collect four-card sets picturing one of 13 famous composers - among them, Mozart. The cards, which cost about $5.50, are available from Michael Olaf (P.O. Box 1162, Arcata, CA 95518; (707) 826-1557). Music Maestro II, a board game of "musical instruments past and present," is a perennial favorite among music lovers. The board pictures 48 different instruments, from the medieval rebec to the twentieth-century electric guitar. The game includes three different packs of playing cards: Instrument Cards, each with a color illustration of a musical instrument; Conductor Cards, which include the name of an instrument and a series of three clues about its identity; and Ensemble Cards, which picture instruments in "ensemble groups" (for example, brass instruments, woodwinds, jazz instruments). Instructions are included for five different games, appropriate for players of different ages (from four on up). Also included is a cassette tape, for an audio version of the game, in which players match illustrated Instrument Cards to the sounds of the instruments on the tape. Music Maestro II costs about $25.00 from Aristoplay, Ltd., P.O. Box 7529, Ann Arbor, MI 48107; (800) 634-7738. Also from Aristoplay is Music Maestro Parade, a musical Bingo-style game for younger players. The game includes a cassette tape featuring the sounds of 32 different instruments. Kids match musical sounds to labeled pictures of each instrument. About $15.00 from Aristoplay (see above).
All of this Mozart exposure may or may not raise your kids' IQs. But they're almost certain to have fun.
For more music resources for children, contact:
Educational Record Center
3233 Burnt Mill Drive, Suite 100
Wilmington, NC 28403-2698
(800) 438-1637
Rhythm Band Instruments
P.O. Box 126
Fort Worth, TX 76101-0126
(800) 424-4724
www.rhythmband.com
West Music
P.O. Box 5521
1212 5th St.
Coralille, IA 52241
(800) 397-9378
Happy Birthday, Grandma Moses: Activities for Special Days Throughout the Year
Happy Birthday, Grandma Moses by Clare Bonfanti Braham and Maria Bonfanti Esche (Chicago Review Press, 1995) is a month-by-month listing of over one hundred special days with accompanying creative hands-on activities, targeted at celebration-loving 3- to 9-year-olds. For each holiday, the authors include background information, complete instructions for associated projects, and related age-appropriate reading suggestions. Featured special days include both such popular celebrations as Chinese New Year, George Washington's Birthday, Cinco de Mayo, and Flag Day, and such lesser-known holidays as Babe Ruth's birthday, National Magic Day, Space Week, the anniversary of the Chicago Fire, and the Japanese Tanabata Star Festival. Participating readers, for example, cook up a batch of green eggs on Dr. Seuss's birthday, play "Ladybug Bingo" on Rachel Carson's birthday, and make sunflower mosaics on Vincent Van Gogh's birthday.
A fun and fact-filled journey through the calendar year. About $12.95 from bookstores.
The Latest from TableTalk
TableTalk cards are collections of conversation starters: each card in the deck presents an interesting fact, followed by an open-ended, discussion-provoking question. They're designed to promote family or classroom communication: use them at the dinner table, the manufacturer suggests, or as a substitute for bedroom stories; take them on walks, tote them in the car, use them to pass the time in doctors' waiting rooms or interminable check-out lines. As well as the original TableTalk deck - we used ours until the box fell apart; the cards are now loose in the glove compartment of the car - there are now ten different decks concentrating on specific conversational topics. Latest in the series include ArtTalk, MusicTalk, MovieTalk, BibleTalk (two decks, one covering the Old, one the New, Testament), and TravelTalk.
TravelTalk is a talkative tour of geography. A sample card reads: "China's Yellow River earned its name because of the golden silt that gives the 3000-mile waterway its color. Ireland is known as the Emerald Isle because of its rich, green countryside. The Red Sea gets its sometimes rosy hue from red algae that grow in it. What is the most colorful place you have ever been? If you could give that place a new name based on its hue, what would you call it?"
Or try this one, from ArtTalk: "Trained as an engineer, Alexander Calder wanted to create works of art that incorporated balance, motion, and other mathematical principles. He created moving sculptures made of colored metal connected by wire that moved in the air. French painter Marcel Duchamp dubbed these scuptures 'mobiles.' What would you call Calder's creations if Duchamp hadn't named them first? Why?"
Or, from MusicTalk: "In 1977, the U.S. launched two Voyager spacecraft into the solar system. In addition to scientific equipment, the probes carry other evidence of human achievement: three musical compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach, and the equipment necessary to play them. If you could choose three musical works to represent humankind on a future space probe, what works would you select? Why?"
An interesting experience for all. The cards cost about $5.95 per deck, from TableTalk, P.O. Box 31703, St. Louis, MO 63131; (800) 997-5676 or (314) 997-5676; www.tbltalk.com.
Flying High: Around the World in 80 Plays
A geography board game in which players, piloting colorful little plastic planes, travel from the City of Departure to the Winner's Circle/Home, attempting to win Travel Dollars and answer quiz questions as they go. To complete their world tour, each player must land on each The board's seven cities (except the notorious and potentially expensive "Hurricane City," which one should, if possible, avoid). At each city, players must answer a question from a "Geo-Quiz" or "Mystery Quiz" card. Questions - 1100 of them in all - test either geographical or general knowledge, and are either multiple choice or fill-in-the-blank. Level I questions are intended for 7- to 10-year-olds; Level II questions for 11-year-olds and up. Level I, however, in my opinion, is a tad challenging for the average 7-year-old. Sample Level I Mystery questions include "Plants have what two principal types of roots?" and "The invention of the modern detective story is credited to...Edgar A. Poe, John Steinbeck, or Herman Hesse?" Sample Level I Geo-Quiz questions: "The official language of Guadeloupe is....Spanish or French?," "Mameys are tropical...spiders, fruits, or flowers?," and "Which island in the West Indies is also known as the Spice Island...Jamaica, Haiti, or Grenada?"
The game isn't all mind-bending tests questions. Also included are Adventure Cards ("Beware! The suspicious-looking person on your left may be a spy!"), Problem Cards ("Your cat was checked in on another flight. Go back to the last city or pay $300 to have him sent."), and Fun Island Cards, with which players can challenge their opponents to tennis, golf, or soccer matches, or have a try at winning the lottery.
Flying High costs about $22.00 (U.S.) plus shipping/handling. For 3 to 6 players, aged 7 and up, from Viv Familee Games International, 9651 Odlin Road, Richmond, B.C. V6X 1E1, Canada; (604) 273-5683; www.intergate.bc.ca/business/vfgi.
The Ultimate Guide to Student Contests Grades 7-12
Over 250 contests, competitions, awards programs, talent searches, and places to get published for kids of middle-school-age and up. The book, by Scott Pendleton (Walker and Company, 1997), covers contests in an immense range of academic and creative fields: Art, Photography, Dance, Drama, Music, Journalism, Essay Writing, Playwriting, Poetry, Mathematics, Science and Engineering, Civics, Current Events, Economics, Social Studies, Foreign Languages, Geography, History, English Language Arts, Mythology, and more. Motivated kids, for example, can tackle the UNICEF "Kids Helping Kids" Greeting Card Contest, the National Poetry Day Contest, the National Speech Tournament, the Rube Goldberg Contest, or the Physics Bowl.
There's a description of each contest, complete information on who to contact for application or entry forms, and a tempting list of prizes. About $15.95 from bookstores.
Colonial Kids: An Activity Guide to Life in the New World
Colonial Kids by Laurie Carlson (Chicago Review Press, 1997) is a terrific American history resource for activity-loving 5- to 12-year-olds. It combines background historical information on the colonial period with a wide selection of creative craft projects, recipes, and science activities. Under "Sailing and Settling," for example, kids learn to tie knots, make a compass, and build a model ship; under "Home Sweet Home," they make a rag rug, a painted chest, and a silverplated tray; under "Dinnertime!," they churn butter, make trenchers, and bake a pumpkin pie. Under "Everyday Life," activities include turning out a batch of homemade cough syrup, dipping candles, piecing a quilt, making wampum, and trying a hand at target practice; under "School & Learning," young craftspeople make a quill pen, walnut-shell ink, a hornbook, a sampler, and a personal bookplate. And much more.
For each project, there's a complete materials list and detailed instructions. About $12.95 from bookstores.
Muzzy
Muzzy - he's big, furry, and blue - is The leading characters in this BBC video language course for children from Early Advantage. The videos, which are charming, feature the adventures of the King, the Queen, the beautiful princess (Sylvia, Silvia, or Silvie), the gardener who loves her (Bob, Juan, Jean, or Carlo), the evil prime minister Corvax, and Muzzy himself - all in English, plus your choice of French, Spanish, Italian, or German. The videos are designed to introduce kids to a second language in the same manner in which they learned their first: by listening, watching, imitating. The course is designed for very young language learners (from birth, the accompanying brochure explains) through students aged 12. The complete course includes four animated story videos (two in English, two in the selected foreign language) which contain six simple stories, two audio tapes, and an interactive CD-ROM, "Muzzy at the Seaside," (for Windows 3.1 or 95) with which kids can listen to a story, practice their comprehension and speaking skills, and play assorted foreign-vocabulary-based games. There's also a video vocabulary builder, in which the Muzzy characters, in 27 short lessons, teach such language basics as numbers, shapes, and colors, parts of the body, greetings, names of animals, foods, family members, and musical instruments, and directions. A video script book includes the texts of all the videos for parents or for older kids who like to read along.
It's attractive, it's easy to use - "Just start the tape. That's all." - and it works.
The entire course, in a big plastic storage portfolio, costs $169; it can also be purchased in monthly installments of $33.80. To order, or for additional information, contact Early Advantage, P.O. Box 320368, Fairfield, CT 06432; (888) 327-5923; www.early-advantage.com.
© 1998, Rebecca Rupp
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