Bookstore hosting book signing for local author

A local author will hold a book sign­ing at the Ober­lin Book­store on Dec. 10 to cel­e­brate the pub­li­ca­tion of her lat­est book.

“Play­ing with the Clas­sics: Music Mas­ter­works for Chil­dren, Vol. 1” is writ­ten by Peggy Ben­nett, pro­fes­sor of music edu­ca­tion at Ober­lin College.

Ben­nett is the direc­tor of the Oberlin’s Music­Play pro­gram, which offers music classes to area chil­dren ages three to five and their families.

“The project was to write down what we’ve been doing in our Music­Play classes with regard to the mas­ter­piece works, the clas­sics in par­tic­u­lar,” said Ben­nett. “I have devel­oped, with the help of these chil­dren and their par­ents, ways to be play­ful with some of the clas­sics in music.”

This is Bennett’s fifth pub­lished book.

Her pub­lisher is also plan­ning on releas­ing “Play­ing with the Clas­sics Vol. 2” some­time early next year.

The first vol­ume has 11 dif­fer­ent lessons that give teach­ers and par­ents ideas on how to intro­duce chil­dren to clas­si­cal pieces such as Handel’s “Water Music.”

The sec­ond will con­tain an addi­tional 15 lessons and is sched­uled for release in May.

“The book is writ­ten for teach­ers, but also for par­ents and care­givers, peo­ple who have no back­ground in music,” Ben­nett said. “I wrote it so any­body who works with or has young chil­dren could share joy­ful expe­ri­ences with the children.”

The book also includes a CD with the music to accom­pany the lessons.

Another fea­ture that excites Ben­nett is the fre­quently asked ques­tions sec­tion that serves as a com­mu­ni­ca­tion with adults that are using the lessons to teach children.

“It’s a way of my hav­ing a con­ver­sa­tion with peo­ple that might be using the book, and who might be won­der­ing, ‘Why do you do that?’” Ben­nett said.

Some of the ques­tions answered: Why are all the com­posers men? Are the lessons equally adept for teach­ing chil­dren one-on-one as they are in a group set­ting? Why did many of the com­posers wear wigs?

Ben­nett said she tries to immerse the chil­dren in song to help them real­ize the beauty of the music.

“This cul­ti­va­tion of imag­i­na­tion makes this music from 100 or more years ago come alive for the chil­dren. They love the music because of what they get to imag­ine and what they get to do dur­ing the music,” she said.

The book sign­ing will take place from 1-3 p.m. with a demon­stra­tion of the Music­Play class lessons at 1:30 p.m.

Posted by Scott Mahoney on Dec 1 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.