California-Inspired Composer and Picture Study

Next year, as we renovate our home and need to spend a fair amount of time out of the house, we are going to study California history and geography. See my post here about my plans.

To complement our history content, we are also going to study California artists for our picture study and our composer study.

Why?

Charlotte wrote that “thought breeds thought”. If we want to raise intellectually curious, creative children – we must introduce them to the works of intellectually curious, creative and inventive people. The arts and culture bring so much joy and awe to our lives.

When I was in junior high school, my parents decided that we would drop whatever we were doing one Tuesday evening every couple of months and go to the local theatre to see a play with season’s tickets. Our very first Tuesday night at the theatre, we settled into our seats to see A Streetcar Named Desire. It was my very first play. Before the curtain opened, the director came out onstage and told the audience that the actress performing the role of Stella had to be called away for a family emergency and her role would be performed by her understudy, who still hadn’t memorized all of the lines and would be performing with a script in her hand. I groaned and worried I would have to watch someone embarrass themselves abysmally onstage and how utterly painful that would be. But it was phenomenal. I’d never seen anything like it, and it was made all the more memorable by the script in hand, so artfully concealed in the natural movements of the actress. It’s a night I’ve never forgotten.

Our family returned again, year after year, to Theatre Calgary on a Tuesday night. Together we saw dozens of plays like Death of a Salesmen, the Taming of the Shrew, Hamlet, Joan of Arc, Philadelphia, Guys and Dolls, The Diary of Anne Frank, Of Mice and Men, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and A Christmas Carol. These nights are some of the best memories I have with my parents. I don’t regret one single Tuesday night I didn’t spend studying. I am so glad my parents did that with my brother and me.

My parents invested in my cultural capital and exposed me to new ideas and new experiences. I wasn’t being tested on it. I didn’t have to write a paper on it. I didn’t even have to like it (hello Copenhagen, to date the worst play I’ve ever seen). But I experienced it, thought about it, and discussed it at intermission with my parents. It helped me grow into an adult.

I love Leah Boden’s modern digestion of Charlotte Mason’s writings and method. In her book Modern Miss Mason, she writes: “When we help children to connect with art, music, poetry, and plays, it heightens and increases what Charlotte referred to as their “Beauty Sense”. And beauty sense is what is required for us to truly grasp living insight. Charlotte described us all as having the “need to be trained to see, and to have our eyes opened before we can take in the joy that is meant for us in this beautiful life.”” (Leah Boden, p. 123, Modern Miss Mason).

Cultural education doesn’t need to start in junior high when my kids are old enough to sit through Hamlet and make the ticket price worthy the cost. It can start at home, homeschooling or not, through picture study and composer study.

Picture Study

When we look at art, I am not expecting my children to critique it, or love it, but just look at it. What do you see? What colors did the artist use? How does this picture make you feel? What does this picture remind you of? Where is the light coming from in the picture? Is there a sun in the sky? A window? A light bulb? A fire? With my kids in early elementary, we often play I-Spy.

We look at the same artist’s work for 12 weeks. One different piece of art every two weeks, on a Friday morning for 5 minutes during our tea-time, a special Friday morning candle-lit ritual where we set the table, have tea in fancy cups and baked goods on the nice plates. On the first Friday we just look at the art piece. We observe and we reflect on what we see. We play I-Spy and we ask questions. The second week we observe it again, and then we close our eyes and try to describe it. We might even try to sketch it (a heartwarming undertaking, if you’ve ever seen a 5 year old’s sketch of the Mona Lisa) or, in the case of photography, try to pose like it. 6 different pieces by each artist for 2 weeks each – a different artist every 12 weeks. There are 36 weeks in a year of school, so we will cover 3 artists.

Next year we are studying the history of California. There are so many wonderful Californian artists to choose from, it’s been incredibly hard to narrow it down. However, I think we will go with:

Ansel Adams (1902-1984), photographer

Franz Arthur Bischoff (1864-1929), painter

Dorothea Lange (1895- 1965), photojournalist

These artists are also featured with exhibits of their work in museums in California – so my hope is that we will be able to visit their work in person next year as well.

Composer Study

Typically, in a traditional Charlotte Mason education, students would study classical music composers. Charlotte Mason died in 1922, so the composers she spoke about were mostly all classical composers. One thing I’d love to be able to ask Charlotte Mason in 2024 is which music composers she would consider worthy of study considering how much music has changed over the last 100 years and how many new genres have come out.

To surmise her answer, I ask myself – what was the point of composer study? Why did Charlotte Mason go through such extraordinary efforts to have her students listen to music in a time when it was not just typing a few words into a music streaming service?

Leah Boden, writes in her book Modern Miss Mason, “The addition of music appreciation is about fostering relationships with the lives of those who created the music.” When we listen to the music of a particular artist in an intentional way – listening to their music every week driving to a particular extracurricular activity for a term (6-12 weeks), we get acquainted with their musical style and the kinds of things they have to say. The music becomes recognized and later, when we are out in the world (at the grocery store, a friend’s wedding, or waiting for the car at the mechanic) and we hear this artist and recognize their music- it is like seeing an old friend.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t usually hear Bach at the grocery store or while waiting for my car to have its oil changed. But I do hear the Beatles, or Elton John. Queen, Louis Armstrong, REM, Taylor Swift, Dolly Parton, The Offspring, Elvis Presley, Beyoncé…so many artists who have created generation-defining music that so many enjoy.

Leah Boden continues, “The soundtrack of our homeschooling days must now represent our modern lives….let’s not be limited to the gramophone classics of bygone years, but we should allow our children to listen in on the sounds of the past as they learn to appreciate the music and arts of today.” (p. 132)

How do I do composer study?

We listen to each artist for 6 weeks, and I bundle listening to the artist with driving to my son’s occupational therapy appointment on Thursday, a drive of about 15-20 minutes. On the first Thursday, we also read a children’s biography of the artist, or we watch a Youtube video biography, interview, live performance, or music video of them. At the end of the six weeks, my kids request specific favourite songs from the artist

So which “friends” will I introduce to my children next year? This year we listened to the Beatles, Queen, Taylor Swift, and Dolly Parton. Next year we are studying California history and geography, so I think we will cover California artists, and let me tell you – it is a very long list to choose just 6 artists to listen to each for 6 weeks as we drive to occupational therapy on Thursdays. California’s impact on the world of music is substantial. Did you know that Leo Fender, of Fender guitars – you know the telecaster and stratocaster, was born and raised in Anaheim?

Side note on Leo Fender – there is also a museum exhibit about his life and his guitars at the Fullerton Museum Center. I must make a note to visit when we are in the LA area next year also visiting the La Brea Tar Pits.

Anyways back to choosing some musical composers to study – Here are some of the California artists I could choose from: Merle Haggard, The Byrds, Etta James, The Beach Boys, Jefferson Airplane, Santana, The Grateful Dead, The Doors, Frank Zappa, The Eagles, Joni Mitchell, Stevie Nicks & Lindsay Buckingham (Fleetwood Mac), the Offspring, Bad Religion, Green Day, Metallica, Mötley Crüe, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Bangles, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Tupac, Blink-182, No Doubt, Rage Against the Machine, Stone Temple Pilots, Weezer, Queens of the Stone Age, Korn, Linkin Park, A Perfect Circle, System of a Down, Tool, Switchfoot, Dave Brubeck, Vince Guaraldi, David Cope, Henry Cowell, Nati Canto

How to choose? I think we are going to go with artists that are most appropriate for elementary-aged kids, that we are likely to stumble across in our daily lives, showcase a variety of musical genres, feature the diversity of California, and have age-appropriate biographies written about them.

So my list for next year’s music composer study is:

• The Beach Boys (pop)
• The Eagles (rock)
• Dave Brubeck (jazz)
• Nati Cano (mariachi)
• Henry Cowell (classical)
• Etta James (gospel, blues, R&B, jazz)

We visit the Henry Cowell redwood preserve a few times a year. Until I did research for these curriculum plans, I had no idea that Henry Cowell was an eclectic classical music composer from Menlo Park, California. His music is….different. So while we probably won’t hear his music at Safeway – we do visit the park named for him often.

I’m still gathering some resources to support this study. I’m learning that barely any biographies about these artists have been written for children…so maybe I need to write them? I plan to schedule 6 songs by each of these artists to listen to as we drive to occupational therapy. Stay tuned (pun intended) for more resources at this page as I find them. Check out some Youtube videos of their music below!

I’ll leave you with this final quote from Leah Boden. It reminds me of the sacrifice my parents made for me in my cultural education.

She writes, “Every generation needs someone to lead the way, to pull back the curtains and introduce children and young people to the beauty found in art and culture. Now, in the twenty-first century we have no excuses; we have concerts in the palm of our hands, and art at our fingertips. We only need to open the door wide and show generous hospitality to the ideas and contribution of the younger generation. And if the cultural capital we build up in our children’s lives really will stay deep in their souls, even to the end of their days, then surely it is worth making sure what we offer them daily will stand the test of time.”

Warmly,

-Heather

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