Did you know that Roald Dahl’s James and the Giant Peach has music? Yep! While it’s not filled with music, if you have a student who is reading the book, here are a few sections you might want to discuss!
- Chapter 24 – The grasshopper is a violinist and his body serves as the violin. You can use this to start a discussion about the sounds that grasshoppers make and/or talk about violins. In the same section, “chords, harmonies, [and] tunes” are also mentioned. You can discuss these terms with your student(s) as well.
- Chapter 26 – The grasshopper plays the Funeral March. Let your student listen to it (Movement III here) and see if he/she is familiar with it!
- Chapter 39 – The grasshopper ends up playing in the New York Symphony Orchestra. Does your student know about this orchestra ? What about the harpist in the New York Philharmonic?
I haven’t seen the movie….if you’ve seen the movie, be sure to let me know in the comments if the fiddle-playing grasshopper is in it!
-Barbara
Barbara Fischer runs Fischarper, LLC and loves her job as a harpist and private music educator. She enjoys blogging about various aspects of the music field on fischarper.com/blog. For more music resources, check out the Fischarper store. Find out where you can find Barbara on the interwebs here. And you can sign up to receive Fischarper updates by joining the email list.