Check This Out! - The Deal of The Century

When it comes to purchasing classical music, I head to Naxos first. They offer high quality recordings at a low price. So, imagine my thrill last week when I discovered that they were offering 24 hours of classical music for $9.99 on iTunes!

Naxos has taken 22 of their full-length albums and compiled them into one AMAZING collection. Which includes:

BACH, J.S.: Brandenburg Concertos, Vol. 1
BEETHOVEN: Piano Sonatas Nos. 8, 14 and 23
BRAHMS: Symphony No. 2 / Serenade No. 2
CHOPIN: Nocturnes (Selection)
DEBUSSY: Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune / Nocturnes
DOWLAND, J.: Dowland's Tears - Lute Music, Vol. 2
DVORAK: Symphony No. 9 / Symphonic Variations
FAURE: Requiem / Messe Basse
GRIEG: Orchestral Music
HANDEL: Messiah (1751 Version) [double album]
HAYDN: String Quartets Op. 76, Nos. 1- 3
HILDEGARD VON BINGEN: Heavenly Revelations
LISZT: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 2 / Totentanz
MOZART: Requiem in D Minor
PALESTRINA: Missa Papae Marcelli
RIMSKY-KORSAKOV: Sheherazade / The Tale of Tsar Saltan
SCHUBERT: String Quartets (Complete), Vol. 1
SCHUMANN, R.: Kinderszenen / Papillons / Carnaval
TALLIS: Spem in alium / Missa Salve Intemerata
TCHAIKOVSKY: Nutcracker / Swan Lake (Excerpts)
VIVALDI: 4 Seasons / Wind Concertos
WAGNER, R.: The Ring (Orchestral Highlights)

I purchased this collection for my own library, and I'm recommending it for my students, too!

Check This Out! - Musopen

I came across Musopen a while back while compiling my "Listening Room" project. It is full public domain downloads of classical music, that can be used for various projects. From the website:

Musopen is an online music library of copyright free (public domain) music. We want to give the world access to music without the legal hassles so common today. There is a great deal of music that has expired copyrights, but almost no recordings of this music is in the public domain. We aim to record or obtain recordings that have no copyrights so that our visitors may listen, re-use, or in any way enjoy music. Put simply, our mission is to set music free.

Public domain works are not protected by U.S. copyright law and are free to be used, copied, performed and distributed by anyone for any purpose, even if sold for profit.

I've been finding various ways to use this website in my lessons. One of my students is using My First Piano Adventures, and really enjoys learning about all of the composers! She told me that she listens to the corresponding CDs every night while she goes to sleep, and she was very disappointed to find out that Book C didn't have a CD with it. So, what did I do? As we've been studying the various composers, we've been going to Musopen and creating a CD of their works! Problem solved!

I hope that some of you find this resource as useful as I do... It was just too cool not to share!

Check This Out! - Two New Blog Discoveries!

Be sure to check out the list of links on the sidebar on the left! I've added two new blogs to the list:

Listen and Learn

The Piano Pedagogy Page

Check This Out! - iTunes

While browsing iTunes the other day, I went to take a look at what is offered in iTunes U and came across some great free recordings of classical music, done by Columbia University. If you want to listen and download for yourself, just search for "Columbia University Orchestra" in the iTunes Store. It should bring up several recordings... click "See All" in the box labeled iTunes U for the free downloads! If you have trouble finding it, let me know and I will post some links, because you really don't want to miss out on these!

While you're there, you might also try searching for "Classics For Kids" to learn about composers, or search for "Little Kids Rock" for free guitar lesson or drum lesson videos (again selecting whatever is in the iTunes U box).

Enjoy!

Check This Out! - Composer Activity Pak

Laura over at Lowe Piano Studio is hosting a giveaway for a really neat Composer Activity Pak from Homeschool in the Woods. I'm entering it, for a chance to win this awesome resource for my students to enjoy, and I thought some of you might be interested in the giveaway, too! (Especially all of my homeschool families!)

Check out the Composer Activity Pak giveaway here, and check out Homeschool in the Woods here!

Check This Out! - Amazon.com

I am completely addicted to iTunes. I purchase so much music that I'm afraid it may have killed my last computer. However, now that iTunes is straying from their $0.99 downloads and it's becoming increasingly harder for me to find what I want, I'm having to find other outlets! Today, while searching for a piece of music I couldn't seem to find anywhere, I remembered to try the digital downloads at amazon.com.

One word: Wow.

I think from this point forward I will probably be buying ALL of my music at Amazon. Go check it out for yourself! They have an amazing amount of (100% legal) FREE music, as well as a ton of inexpensive classical music. It's a great way to build your music library!

Case in point:

Scroll down to "Classical" on this page, then click $4.99 and under. FABULOUS deals!

Then, try searching "Classical," and sort the results by price. There's even a ton of FREE stuff! You may have to click around, but I was able to download several free jazz samplers, as well as some music from around the world this afternoon!

Enjoy!

Check This Out! - Animusic

Natalie over at Music Matters Blog reminded me about these super cool Animusic music videos with her most recent giveaway. I'm thinking these might make an appearance at an upcoming lesson! You can get a sneak peek here:



What do you think?