Here at Miss Mason’s Music, I am striving to remain true to an authentic interpretation of Mason’s principles and practices. Although the styles and sounds of music change over the centuries, very little about music literacy has changed since Mason’s day. This is a wonderful thing because it allows us to almost replicate exactly what she was doing in the PNEU. I do that with delight because I believe what she was doing 100 years ago will be just as effective for children of today! There is no need for scientific updates or cultural edits as we might choose to do in Science or History. I have done my best to study the books she was using and teach you from those books. My first few terms of lessons that I am offering were written last year in the midst of my research and so they are a combination of things I knew as a music educator and Mason’s musical practices, but as I build new lessons in the coming months and years, I hope to dig deep into her curriculum choices and offer those to you to the best of my ability.
For 2017-2018 school year, this is a Beta program. I am still building content for the site. Paying members for this school year will receive a significant monetary discount due to the fact that content in some subject areas is still being added! For this school year, I will also offer a full refund within the first 90 days for any reason. I want you to be pleased and benefit from what I am offering. If you are unhappy for any reason, please contact me and you will receive a full refund within that time frame. Below is a course description for each music subject area including things I hope to add throughout the year. You can also view the sample lessons on each subject page to get a feel for what some of the content is like!
Course Descriptions for each subject area:
Singing Lessons
- Weekly family solfege lessons with written instructions, music, and ear-training and sight-singing videos. These lessons contain content that will be suitable for a beginner through intermediate or advanced students.
- A Capella audio recordings (and sheet music – coming soon!) from many of Mason’s original folk song books – 2-3 suggested songs to learn per term. Simpler Nursery Rhymes available for younger forms and National Folk tunes for older forms.
- Links to Foreign Language resources (Audio Recordings coming soon).
- Hymn Recitation and singing suggestions by term
Drill
- Musical Drill exercise videos for term 1 complete. Lessons for younger and older forms available. More Lessons for Term 2 and 3 coming soon as well as scans to several of Mason’s original musical drill books which are hard to find.
- Family dancing instructional videos for Term 1. Dancing Suggestions for full year coming soon.
- Musical Game videos to help cement music skills through training the ear with pitch and body through rhythm.
Music Appreciation and Music History
- Several composer study programs based on the Parents’ Review, covering several time periods so your family can select a composer that fits into the historical time period you are studying. New composers will be added throughout the years.
- Reading plans for older forms to work through the music history books Mason used in her programmes or other suitable books with more modern information.
Sample Music Appreciation Lessons
Instrumental Music and Music Theory
- Suggestions for incorporating Mason’s philosophy into private piano lessons. I am working with a Piano instructor and my daughter to see if we can make online lesson videos available for piano.
- Drumming Lesson Videos included to introduce instrumental playing to children without piano experience. (Although Mason’s programmes did not offer other instrumental lesson plans, I don’t see why it would be problematic to learn other instruments. There are benfits to learning piano first in my opinion, but I don’t think we have to be legalistic about instrument choices.)
- Reading Schedules and Lesson Plans for Older students to work through the Music Theory books Mason used.