Music

Little Strummers

Little Strummers: A Guitar Course for Children Ages 6 – 10 (PDF ebook)

Today’s resource is this excellent beginner’s guide for young guitarists, by homeschool mom & part-time guitar teacher, Tara Tarbet. Tara created this starter guide to use with her own young guitar students, and has generously allowed us to share it with you here. (If you like this, please post a comment to let Tara know her work is appreciated!)

We’ve looked at guitar tutorials for some time, hoping to find something that is geared specifically for young children just starting out, and to tell you the truth, this is still the best resource we’ve seen yet. Simple tips and teaching suggestions, followed by a songbook of 20+ simple and familiar children’s songs (with even more tips at the bottom of each song). No drawn out instruction that is over the heads of little ones — just get in there and start playing. Great fun!

To download today’s resource, RIGHT CLICK HERE then “save as” to your computer! (Mac users: Press “Control” then click the link and you can then download to your computer)

 

History, Music

American Traditional Music

Here’s a unique site all about American Folk and Traditional Music from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.

The site offers hundreds of songs, with lyrics, midi files, tune information and the history behind the folk songs and ballads. Not all of these tunes were written by Americans, but they are songs that were known in America. Most songs of the Colonial and Revolutionary Era were songs that originated in England, Scotland and Ireland and immigrated with their people. The songs on the site are arranged by time period and major events or themes, including the Revolutionary War, Civil War, Sea Shantys and Songs, Cowboy songs, etc.

This is a great site to refer to whenever you are studying American history. Just find a few songs from the era you are studying and you’ll learn a lot more about what was going on in regular people’s lives and what they listened to during that time.

Click here to go to the site!

Music

Blank Sheet Music Templates

Staff paper can be expensive. MusicaNeo has provided a large assortment of blank music sheets to help save costs. You will find both educational music sheets with large staves and different templates, which are optimized to fit a large amount of work on a single page. Free blank sheet music is provided in PDF file format (A4 and U.S. letter size) and can be printed on any standard printer. You can either click and print immediately or download the file and print later. BIG money saver for any students studying music!
 
One of our followers, Jean Clark, said about this resource: “I’m a homeschooling mom who supervises the study of both piano and violin for my child. These free sheets have come in very handy when scaling hymns or other advanced pieces down to my son’s skill level. They would be excellent for teaching or practicing composition as well. Formats are available/appropriate for almost any instrument, whether beginner or advanced.”

CLICK HERE to go to the site