Any proper "Renaissance Man" enjoys fine music, right? Play classical music and you become instantly refined, right? And as your Grand Renaissance Mama, it is my duty to expose my son to the finer things in life! Yeah, well thankfully we both actually do enjoy classical music and Opera!
In my husband’s very musical family children start playing musical instruments at 8. I have though spent the last 3 years trying to develop a love and appreciation for music. I once read a book by Amy Chua “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom”, who gained notoriety by pressuring her children to excel at playing masterpieces on the violin. Please do not get me wrong, I am an insanely tough mother on my children to excel academically. But our lovely author wrote a piece that white mothers are the worse mothers in the world. Honestly I did not read that piece, because I have already read her book and I already know what her attitude is! Because OBVIOUSLY she thinks the Chinese are so superior to us white slacker folks! BUT, my goals with my “Renaissance Man to be” is not to have him REHASH the masterpieces of our WHITE Genius’s over and over and over again, but to BE THE GENIUS!!! My goal with my son’s musical teaching is to INSPIRE CREATIVITY, NOT to JUST rehash others creativity over and over and over, like some folks think! Because us Neanderthal like white people honor and value creative thought, we value originality and ingenuity! THAT is what sets us apart!
To try to properly musically educate our “future Renaissance Man” we really enjoyed a DVD series called Wunderkind Little Amadeus, it did not have as many facts as I would have liked, but for a 5 or 6 year old, it excited and inspired him. My fondest memories was walking into Barnes and Noble and my son was telling everyone that he was going to be just like Mozart when he grew up. We of course listened to a lot of Mozart’s music and I felt really proud to be somewhere and my little guy could pick out Mozart’s pieces. We read “Famous children, Mozart” by Ann Rachlin and “Getting to know the World’s Greatest Composers, Mozart” by Mike Venezia. A very interesting find was by Classical Kids called Mozart’s “Magical Fantasy” and we got Mozart’s “Magnificent Voyage”. These were Mozart’s operas simplified and in English on CD and my son loved to listen to them over and over and OVER again!
Then one day…. “I don’t like Mozart anymore, I like Beethoven” said my little guy.
But I got to enjoy weeks and weeks of listening to my son hum Mozart, pretend to be Mozart and pretend to write masterpieces. What a gift I got watching my son internalize his experiences!
The joys of being a mother and to get to educate my son! Such a gift. Please join me on my Facebook page “Raising a Renaissance Man” and we can grow together! I love homeschooling my son and watching his passion for learning grow! If you are new to homeschooling I would love to be there as a friend, and help to inspire you. Homeschooling is so fun, but a little overwhelming.
Looks like you're learning a lot as well!
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