The Bottomline
How would you like to travel across the globe, explore different cultures, learn about their musical heritage and discover musical instruments you may not have heard of before, without leaving your seat? Listen for Life Productions has made this possible through "Travels With Music", an interactive program that makes learning an exciting voyage.
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Product Description
Product Review
"Travels With Music" (TWM) Series One is produced by Listen for Life Productions, a nonprofit music-media organization, and distributed by passportM. It contains 30 units exploring 15 cultures; from the blues roots and styles of North America to the Javanese gamelan of Indonesia. The regions covered in this program are: North America, Central America and the Caribbean, South America, West Africa, North Africa, Eastern Europe, Eastern Mediterranean, South Asia and Southeast Asia.After logging in you have a choice of exploring world cultures, playing games or brushing up on your music vocabulary by going to the glossary. A fourth option allows you to exit the program and go back to the homepage.
Choosing "Explore World Cultures" loads the world map and hovering over each marked location brings up quick facts about that region. Once you've chosen a location to explore simply click on the marker and musical instrument icons will appear letting you know the topics that are covered. Click on a musical instrument to learn more about that region's musical heritage.
This program is ripe with information presented through, written text, videos and audio samples. The videos feature performances and artist interviews. There is a profile page for the featured artist as well as information on the instrument/s used. You can also listen to music samples on the "Songs" page. For example, we learn about how blues music evolved through interviews with blues musician/historian Ronnie Stewart and performances by Wendell Brooks and company.
