Embark on a musical journey through time with a captivating book specially crafted for children and young adults.
Welcome to one of the July 12th stops on the blog tour for Little People: 10 Famous Composers by Clemency Crow with Goddess Fish Promotions. Be sure to follow the rest of the tour for spotlights, reviews, more author guest posts, and a giveaway! More on that at the end of this post.
Please note that this post contains affiliate links, which means there is no additional cost to you if you shop using my links, but I will earn a small percentage in commission. A program-specific disclaimer is at the bottom of this post.
Author Guest Post
Back when I was a young whipper-snapper, round about the time that the dinosaurs disappeared, I wanted to be a good artist. But, whenever I eagerly put pencil to paper, the result was… well… it was somewhere between calamitous and downright terrifying. I had this tendency to draw hands larger than heads, with bulbous fingers which would surely weigh the poor individual down. They looked more like wings than hands.
As with many children, I had a good imagination, and the picture I saw in my head when I started drawing was sadly a far cry from the abomination which I put down on paper.
You might think I’m being too hard on myself, but think again!
So, since I wanted to be a good artist, and since I couldn’t draw what was in my mind, I decided to create and nurture my own style in what then became the “Little People” series. I spent most of the time drawing a large head, with clear features and defining points. Perhaps someone had a large nose, or had a particularly round face. Hair colour was included, but eye colour was not. Glasses, perhaps. Usual expression, certainly. I became reasonably good at drawing different emotions.
No-one was safe from my new-found delight in drawing Little People. My family, book characters, film characters, famous musicians… the list goes on. I must have drawn hundreds of Little People when I was a kid! One of my favourites was to draw characters from my sisters’ stories. I got really good at drawing Cadell, my favourite character.
What made these Little People so fun for me was the fact that, apart from the head, there was little to no detail at all. They had a vague shaped body, with round limbs sticking out of blobby bodies. And no hands. The arms just stopped. And no hands meant no weirdly sized fingers. They had clothes of course! But these were an afterthought and very little effort was put into considering their apparel – I’ve never been too obsessed about clothes!
As many things do, my interests moved on. Perhaps to writing, perhaps to other hobbies. But Little People was always something I’d come back to. Eventually, I did. This book, Famous Composers, is the first venture of the Little People into the big, wide world. My methods of illustration have advanced a little into computer drawing. I particularly enjoyed working on Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, but the premise is still the same. Detailed head. Body afterthought.
Now, as a teacher, I teach children who love art and are good at it, and others who wish they could be better. My answer is always to develop your own style, your own brand, and run with it! No one can tell me the Little People are historically inaccurate because of course they are! That’s the whole point of them. If you draw a giraffe but you colour it in purple and pink, it’s clear you’ve made a definite decision to make it inaccurate. But if you try colouring it in yellow and brown but get the wrong shades, people are going to notice and pick you up on it.
Thank you for taking the time to read this blog post. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed the trip down Memory Lane, and I hope you take from it just how freeing it is to develop a different style from the norm. While we continue to upload “Famous Composers” to Amazon, the paperback for “Famous Composers” is available from the Crowvus shop: www.crowvus.com/shop
About the Book
Little People: 10 Famous Composers
by Clemency Crow
Genre: Children’s Nonfiction
Embark on a musical journey through time with a captivating book specially crafted for children and young adults.
Through the pages of “Little People: 10 Famous Composers”, readers will not only learn about the composers’ masterpieces but also gain insight into the challenges and triumphs that fuelled their creativity.
Perfect for aspiring musicians, history enthusiasts, or anyone with a love for melody, “Little People: 10 Famous Composers” is an engaging and educational exploration of the power of music and the extraordinary individuals who composed their way into history.
Excerpt
Ludwig Van Beethoven
1770 – 1827
Beethoven has earned the distinction of being one of the world’s most popular composers, while being deaf. Although Beethoven said his deafness was because of an argument with a singer, he suffered from tinnitus which made his hearing worse.
Nevertheless, he went on to compose some of the world’s best loved songs, including ‘Ode to Joy’, (the Ninth Symphony, the Choral Symphony). This was later adopted by the EU as their anthem.
While Beethoven’s deafness did not stop him from composing as he used the vibrations from his piano, and he knew enough about the science of music to compose pleasing tunes and hear it in his head, it did make live performances almost impossible. This was a problem because it was an important source of income for the composer. Eventually, when his music began to get more popular, his income came from publishing his compositions and from people who believed enough in his work to give him money.
Beethoven was deaf, but that did not stop him from making great music. He wrote ‘Ode to Joy’, and a lot of piano music.
About the Author
Clemency is a primary school teacher, children’s author, and illustrator, based in rural Caithness with her family and two needy spaniels. In fact, Clemency is typing this one handed, because Jess cries if she isn’t stroked for five seconds.
When she isn’t writing, Clemency loves designing new parts of her garden, trying to find plants that will withstand the 70mph winds that are likely to batter them. She is oftentimes to be found tearing her hair out at the prevalence of ground elder in the flower borders, while cultivated species struggle to survive.
Clemency’s favourite genre to write, and read, is fantasy adventure. This gives her ample opportunity to put her long suffering characters in perilous situations.
Website | Facebook | Twitter | BlueSky | BookBub | Amazon | Goodreads
Giveaway Alert!
Clemency Crow will award a $10 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner.
a Rafflecopter giveawayDisclaimer: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
We appreciate you hosting today and featuring Clemency and her Little People.
This sounds like a really interesting book.