I’m going to give my 9 year old son my old iPod but I want to load it with some tracks to begin his musical education. So, what would you put on it?
11 thoughts on “Musical Education”
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musings on ministry
I’m going to give my 9 year old son my old iPod but I want to load it with some tracks to begin his musical education. So, what would you put on it?
Comments are closed.
I think some Queen would be good or some Lennon. Just a couple of classic tracks to give him a taste for ‘older’ stuff.
I was goin to suggest Queen too!
Perhpas a choice selection of AC/DC?
David Crowder too, they do a good selection of just fun songs if he has no interest in Christian music
Got Imagine, Bohemian Rhapsody and We Will Rock you as well as For Those About To Rock, Back In Black and Rock And Roll Ain’t Noise Polution.
As a stalwart Springsteen fan I must suggest Born to Run and Growin’ Up (preferably Live version from 1975-85 box set!).
Dire Straits: Brothers in Arms.
John Mellencamp: Jack & Diane.
Bon Jovi: Wanted Dead or Alive.
Derek & The Dominoes: Layla.
Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Child & All Along the Watchtower.
Pink Floyd: The Great Gig in the Sky & Another Brick in the Wall 2.
Meat Loaf: Bat Out of Hell.
Eric Johnson: Cliffs of Dover.
Lynyrd Skynyrd: Sweet Home Alabama & Freebird.
Bryan Adams: Summer of ’69 & Somebody.
Jeff Wayne: Musical of War of the Worlds.
Blues Brothers: She Caught the Katy & Minnie The Moocher.
Simon & Garfunkel: Bridge Over Troubled Water.
Beethoven’s 9th Symphony.
Some Bach and Mozart.
For some Christian stuff, some dcTalk and Delirious.
Man, this is kinda fun… I could go on and on until no more room on the iPod!!!!
John Coltrane – A Love Supreme
Miles Davis – anything from A Kind of Blue
Bruce Cockburn – The Last Night of the World
Bob Dylan – Is Your Love In Vain?
– Subterranian Homesick Blues
The Beatles – Something
– Here Comes the Sun
Yes – Close To The Edge
Just a few ideas, but don’t miss out the Jazz.
at nine he should really be introduced to some cool experimental listening
so I would suggest
early Kraftwerk
the trippy weird later period Beatles,
dub step like Burial.
70’s glam, Mud or slade
80’s pop, (preferably some two tone action from Madness or anything by price waterhouse cooper!)
greatest hits of a country star, john denver, dolly parton, kenny rogers (early johnny cash)
anything by stevie wonder, aretha franklin, otis redding, marvin gaye, Louis armstrong, or the the rat pack. any motown would do
classic scottish folk, hamish imlach or alistair macdonald, eddi reader’s songs of rabbie burns album is great
really early elvis or the later vegas years elvis
and many more besides, Fleet Foxes, Beirut, Bon Iver, Sufjan Stevens, Any Radiohead.
I’d give him some:
Johnny Cash- “ring of fire”
Pet Shop Boys-“Go West”, “You were always on my mind”
The Killers-“I’ve got soul, but I’m not a soldier”, “Jenny was a friend of mine”
The Editors- “smokers outside the hospital doors”, “munich”
moby- “God moving over the face of the waters”, “dream about me”, “that’s when i reach for my revolver”
The Eagles- “hotel california”
Jeff Buckley- “hallejuhah”
The killers song is actually called ‘all these things that I’ve done” not “I’ve got soul…”
The majority of these suggestions seem heavily tilted towards a narrow part of music history and genres. So here are some suggestions to expand this…..
Some medieval plainchant
Rennaissance polyphony – Monteverdi, Carver etc
Bach Cantatas
Buxtehude Organ music
Vivaldi strings concerti
Haydn String Quartets
Mozart and Beethoven Symphonies
Schubert songs
Chopin piano music
Wagner and Verdi operas
Mahler and Dvorak Symphonies
Gilbert and Sullivan operettas
then things start to get a bit more diverse
Debussy, Schoenberg, Gershwin, Shostakovich, Britten, Elgar and many more
at this point you would probably want to move into some Ragtime and early jazz
Elvis and the Beatles would have to be in there as the start of Rock
following this there are of course a wide range of avenues you could follow to explore popular music a lot of which have been covered already.
Should also maybe cover some contemporary artists who are not quite so populist. Bang on a Can composers might be a good place to start.
Of course this is very British/American focussed – you could explore some world music too, broad range here might be some East African pop, Bollywood, Klezmer and some Chinese folk music
Some random genres to help him discover the broadness of musical styles:
Classical – Lacrimosa from Mozart Requim
Jazz – a kind of blue
Swing – some Jools Holland Big Band stuff, maybe a couple of tracks from the album he did with Tom Jones
Blues – Ridin’ with the King by Eric Clapton and B B King
Also have a look at Stuart Maconie’s Critical List (http://tinyurl.com/cpetko) for landmark albums and artists!
I still remember the feeling of listening to the album ‘A Night At The Opera’ by Queen and discovering a vista of music that I never realized existed. I hope your son experiences the same thing!
“This Love Will Carry” – Dougie Maclean
“Jesu, Joy Of Man’s Desiring” – Leo Kottke
“Nettle Wine” – Ralph McTell
“Jimmy Newman” – Tom Paxton
“Country Life” – Show Of Hands
“Lovers” – Paul Downes
“Year Of The Cat” – Al Stewart
“Her Town” – James Taylor
“The Cottager’s Reply” – Chris Wood