Description
My goal in creating the Shades of Sound listening and coloring curriculum is to help piano students gain an interest in and a love and appreciation for great classical music.
Aspiring pianists need to know the literature, hear the greats perform, and be inspired and excited by the great music that is available! Just as writers need to read, pianists need to listen! Through this fun and engaging curriculum, students will learn about the great composers and their works. Listening repertoire selected includes selections from the solo piano literature, as well as piano and orchestra literature, and orchestral works.
My hope is that students can add just 5-10 minutes of listening per day to their normal practicing. Listening to great music will change their understanding of music and will vastly increase their music history knowledge. It will excite and inspire them, encourage further study and listening, give them new pieces to add to their own repertoire wish list, infuse more great music into their lives, homes, and families, and will boost their musicianship and expression to the next level.
This music history and listening curriculum utilizes four different learning modes simultaneously, creating a super engaging and memorable experience! Students will read and write as they read the biographical and background information and answer the questions included with each listening example; they will use auditory learning as they listen to the music, visual learning as they look at the coloring pages accompanying each piece, and kinesthetic learning as they color the pictures! We know that children learn better by moving, and so the act of coloring while listening really helps students to remember the music. It is a really engaging experience that all ages, young children all the way up to adults, can enjoy!
Composers included in this volume:
- Kassiani
- Barbara Strozzi
- Isabella Leonarda
- Marianna Martines
- Hélène de Montgeroult
- Emilie Mayer
- Alice Mary Smith
- Sophie Menter
- Agathe Backer-Grøndahl
- Teresa Carreño
- Ethel Smyth
- Dora Pejačević
- Nadia Boulanger
- Florence Price
- Germaine Tailleferre
- Hilda Dederich
- Undine Smith Moore
- Zara Levina
- Imogen Holst
- Margaret Bonds
- Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou
- Unsuk Chin
- Lera Auerbach
- Anna Meredith
- Pinar Toprak
- Missy Mazzoli
- Jessie Montgomery
- Hildur Gudnadóttir
- Caroline Shaw
- Reena Esmail
- Gabriella Smith
Anna –
I loved this book. It was an informative guide to a good number of female composers without being overwhelming, so it could easily be used in teaching children. I loved that it spanned composers from the Medieval period through the present day, so I felt like I received a broad education of women composers throughout history. I also loved the formatting of the book. I enjoyed being able to read a brief biography of each composer followed by guided listening assignments so that I could get a feel for each composers’ musical style. I also enjoyed the coloring pages which were fun to look at and see how they related to the music, and I appreciated the focus they gave to my listening. The book itself is also just beautiful in format and style. As someone who makes a point of listening to music every day, using this book definitely enhanced my daily music listening by introducing me to important composers and pieces that I was largely unfamiliar with.
Alissa –
This book is a wonderful teaching resource for music teachers who wish to incorporate women composers in their lessons. The creative presentation of historical materials coupled with coloring book pages is an excellent way to engage students “off the keys.” Perfect for entertaining students while they wait for lessons, taking a quick brain break, or having in a theory/music history lab.
Carmen Hall –
This is a goldmine! This book will be used for many years to come in my studio. This book includes a composer bio, YouTube playlist, Apple Music playlist, coloring page, and bibliographic information for thirty-one different female composers from all over the world. I look forward to sharing this information with my students during group classes. I will be exploring solo and chamber works to play for myself and my students. It also puts me on the lookout for other composers to add to the list – maybe they are in my own studio now. This certainly will be thought-provoking and inspiring to my students. Thank you to Jenny for all the research done for this book. An invaluable resource!
Diane J. Carter –
Amazing and incredible book!
It’s about time we learn about, listen to, perform works composed by these amazing and incredible female composers who for the most part have been forgotten. With the books’ format, it’s easy to be fully engaged in learning by using visual, auditory, tactile and cognitive learning. The artwork is beautiful and captivating. Thank you, Jenny, for your research and production of a valuable asset to everyone’s music library!
Michelle Little –
This book is a fantastic way to introduce a wide variety of female composers. Mrs. Boster has done a phenomenal job of finding exquisitely talented composers shadowed by their well-known male colleagues. Shades of Sound: Women Composers, Volume 2, spans centuries of music history, from composer Kassiani (~810-865 AD) to Pinar Toprah (b. 1980) who was the first woman to score a Marvel Cinematic Universe film.
Not only does this book travel through the ages of women composers, it also captures the breadth of women’s compositions— from religious music to early Romantic piano pieces to gospel music to operas to film scores. Mrs. Boster has done her research and picked beautiful representations of the composer’s works. My favorite was Hildur Gudnadottir, a modern cellist and composer whose heart wrenching melody’s have been featured in tv shows and movies as recently as 2021.
This book is so easy to access. The QR code at the beginning takes you directly to a playlist with the examples given in the book. The coloring pages offer a way to have a meditative experience as you listen. The text is thorough but also simple enough that middle schoolers will understand it and high schoolers will enjoy it.
As a pianist, piano teacher, and parent of budding musicians, I highly recommend Shades of Sound, Volume 2 to expand your and your students’ exposure to incredible female musicians.