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Welcome to the Composer Study Companion website! I am so excited to share this resource with you!
Over the past several years I have blogged about composers on my homeschool website, listing educational and fun activities you can do at home and with groups of students. A few years ago, I discovered the Thomas Tapper composer biographies for children and fell in love! I reprinted these books in four volumes and then felt that it would be beneficial to have a kind of companion to deepen the appreciation for the composer in your studies!
If you’ve never heard of the Thomas Tapper “Great Musicians” series, I encourage you to take a look at Amazon and check them out!
Great Musicians on Amazon
These books are in the public domain, however all the free copies online are not formatted for original use. What makes these books so fun for kids, is that the pictures are intended to be cut out of the book and then pasted throughout the story. I don’t make a profit from the sales of these books because I want them to be available to everyone! (As they are in the public domain!)
The Composer Study Companion book is a treasure trove of information for the parent educator! The book will include short narrative biographies, a list of 6 pieces to study throughout a period of 12 weeks for each composer (each of these suggested pieces will have activity and extension ideas to complement the music), and narrative stories from various composer resources written in the early 1900s.
The 4 volumes of Tapper’s Great Musicians are the same 12 composers that are in the Composer Study Companion, which makes this an invaluable companion to your musical appreciation course! Musical elements such as form, melody, harmony, operatic terms, dynamics, and more are listed in the Composer Study Companion along with interesting anecdotal stories that make learning about these composers a living resource!
You can purchase the Thomas Tapper books and the Composer Study Companion on Amazon, or download individual studies of each composer for $5 here.
Happy listening! Please come join our online community and share your favorite activities!
Composer Study Companion 