Excellent videos and music tell stories of cultures from around the world. From African djembes to contemporary American electric guitars, this online or DVD based music education title is very well written and provides plenty of useful content for a social studies class, world history class, or music appreciation units.

Travels With Music provides very unique and educational looks at fifteen different world cultures focused around their music and the unique instruments that they have developed over the centuries.

World cultures that are included in the software:

• Central America and the Carribbean
• South America
• North America
• China
• West Africa
• North Africa
• Eastern Europe
• Eastern Mediterranean
• South Asia
• Southeast Asia

Each of these sections includes up to twelve highly informative videos that speak about topics such as rhythm, culture, dances, ceremonies, rituals, and dozens of other topics. Each section of the program also includes biographical information on the artists that present the content.

Educational Games and Additional Features:

Other segments of the software provide students with educational games that help them learn the names, sounds, and other information about the dozens of instruments that are profiled in the software. Each instrument is shown with clear photographs and high quality audio sound clips. Further, each section also provides at least one full length audio selection to listen to.

Cross-Curricular Possibilities:

Overall, Travels With Music is a very interesting and useful educational tool that would be at home in a social studies classroom as well as in the music classroom. Further, the wide variety of ways that the software can be used makes it ideal for almost any situation. The software can be played on computers in a lab based environment, but it can also be purchased on a DVD that can be played on any standard DVD player making it work well for classrooms with a video projector or television.

Additional Teacher Resources:

While the Travels With Music software has dedicated, prewritten lesson plans for teachers to use, subscribers to certain license options receive access to a very detailed and highly informative planning document. The teaching guide includes copies of all of the typed documents contained in the Travels With Music software as well as descriptions of each of the videos that are available to view. Further, the guide includes the questions and answers to the games and quizzes included inside the software, allowing a teacher to use them as assessment materials within an overall unit plan.

In general the educational value of this title cannot be overstated. Travels With Music does what it sets out to do, and it does it very well. The quality and variety of the educational videos and instructional content are top notch. For more details see a demo of the software at the Travels With Music web site.