Chidren's Songs - irresistible!
  • Jeffrey TuckerJeffrey Tucker
    Posts: 3,624
    Here is a book of children's plainchant that tells the story of Redemption. Wonderful!

    P.S. should we have a childrens section here?
  • GavinGavin
    Posts: 2,799
    That's incredible! Another quality publication from GIA. So sad they stopped sometime in the '70s.
  • janetgorbitzjanetgorbitz
    Posts: 968
    Oh my goodness! This is wonderful. I plan to begin using it with my boys very soon. I also forwarded the link on to my home schooling friends... Thank you, thank you!
  • Jan
    Posts: 242
    This is terrific! Thanks.
  • David AndrewDavid Andrew
    Posts: 1,206
    Ah, the early days of the Gregorian Institute of America, and originally located in my hometown of Toledo, Ohio, too.

    What a pity they seem, for the most part, to have forgotten their original name, and have reduced it to GIA, thus downplaying the "unmarketable" term "Gregorian".

    Jeffrey: Yes, yes, yes! Let's start a Children's section! We need to have frank discussions about what works and what doesn't when it comes to exposing boys and girls to good music. (I prefer "boys and girls" to the term "children," as it conotes a rather unsophisticated or dumbed-down approach to exposing them to the music of the Western liturgical tradition). There can be frank discussion regarding the use of RSCM-America materials in a way consistent with Roman Catholic practice, and oh so much more!
  • incantuincantu
    Posts: 989
    This is amazing! How will I ever get the principal, music teacher, and pastor to let me use this with the children, though?
  • Chris
    Posts: 80
    This is incredible. I'll definitely be incorporating it into my curriculum for next year. What a great tool this is, especially for the younger grades!

    Yes, please, let's start a section for Catholic Music Education and/or Young Choristers' training. As they say in the world of no-limit Hold'em, I'm all in!
  • Jscola30
    Posts: 116
    There was a text book they published called To God though music, it was like how to teach children chant, a friend gave it to me.
  • Chris
    Posts: 80
    To God Through Music was a wonderful series, published, I believe, in a number of volumes. I have books one and two in my classroom and I find myself using them regularly.
  • mjballoumjballou
    Posts: 994
    I also believe that GIA controls the rights to the early works done by the Grail Movement (before it went collectively nuts). I once had a lovely book of chants from them. While the book is long since disappeared, I still remember one of these little psalm settings - 45 years after the fact! If that doesn't demonstrate the last effect of good music on the mind of children, I don't know what does.
  • Darcy
    Posts: 73
    I would be interested in a children's section. It has been recommended in many different quarters that if you're just getting started with introducing Latin and chant at your parish, the best group to start with is the kids, and it will spread to the adults from there.
  • Aristotle EsguerraAristotle Esguerra
    Posts: 1,186
    "Music Education" exists as a sort of catch-all category, but we can create "Music Education: Children" as a distinct category.
  • admin-dev
    Posts: 21
    "Music Education: General" and "Music Education: Children" are now two separate categories. Do take advantage of both.

    Any pre-existing discussions in "Music Education" that deal specifically with children will be moved to the new category.
  • G
    Posts: 1,400
    Is it legal to print this out?
    What about if I make multiple copies and ask for reimbursement for costs?

    (And I would call them not "children" but "the chronologically-impaired height challenged," if not something less complimentary... but that's just me.)

    Save the Liturgy, Save the World
  • Jeffrey TuckerJeffrey Tucker
    Posts: 3,624
    It's in the public domain.
  • OlbashOlbash
    Posts: 314
    Sigh,

    I only lament that these editions are SO dated. Granted they are not as "lame" as the Ward Method books, but they are still a little too precious for the kind of savvy children I teach every week.

    O Lord, send us a Musician gifted with Graphic Design skills who is both faithful to your teaching and attuned to the fashions and trends of the day who might packageth Thine inspired writings for the Jaded Generations!
  • nullapara
    Posts: 4
    The Ward books 'lame'? Them's fightin' words...
    Her methodology and pedagogical skills can easily be used in today's classroom setting, and are no less applicable and well-thought-out for being 80 years old, and don't need to be given to the students. I teach music to relatively sophisticated students from age 5 to 18 all day, every day in private lessons, choirs, and classroom settings. A good teacher can present the material in a way that suits the pupils. You needn't use every sweet little ditty she provides. Just watch the Ward Method video link on the musicasacra main page. What's lame about that?! What amazing teaching skills and engaged students! I disagree strongly with the 'fashions and trends' comment. Solid curriculum in any subject needn't bow to fashion, and an enthusiastic, unapologetic, disciplined instructor can 'sell' anything to a class.
  • OlbashOlbash
    Posts: 314
    Enthusiastic, unapologetic, and disciplined instructors are, unfortunately, few and far between. I don't have a problem so much with the method. (Well, actually, I do -- I think it ought to include paleography, but that's another story...) But very few century-old curriculum methods still sell, and there's a reason for that. I just think that if the method is worth saving, it ought to be updated (perhaps by a successful and experienced teacher like yourself!) into something more accessible for the iPod-toting tots of our time, not to mention the ill-prepared young teachers coming fresh out of college.
  • nullapara
    Posts: 4
    Olbash- Indeed!! Very well-stated. That is also certainly true of other 'classic-but-dated' music methods - among them the Rurbank band method, the Thompson piano method, and even much of the Bastien piano method books. You are also right that it is very unlikely to be republished for mass distribution in its present form. My knee-jerk reaction was towards what sounded like a critique of the books themselves, which are based on really solid pedagogical principles still in place in major US and European conservatories today, and easy to grasp and implement once you get past the writing style. I, too lament the lack of out-of-the-box *quality* teaching material for today's young Catholic music students. It takes a heck of a lot more work to have to fix everything ourselves! But at least with the Ward method and other gems from 1920-1950 (etc) we don't have to reinvent the wheel. Maybe other Ward enthusiasts will join me in the coming years to develop a slicker, marketable version - one that will be Traddie enough for the Traddies but current enough for the tech-savvy, relatively detached OF kids I teach in CCD, and readily teachable by today's new teachers (not that at 35 I'm so old, but I was a geek when I was a kid, too)... It's all a balance.
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