August 24, 2005
Gratuitous Domestic Musickal Posting (TM)
Regular readers may remember my mentioning that the seven and five year old Llama-ettes were taking up musical instruments.
The elder gel has started in on the piano and is going like gangbusters - she instantly grasped the concept of time value of notes, is fanatical about not looking at her hands while playing and is becoming quite comfortable with the C-scale. In fact, my only fear about her is that she'll get bored with playing simple little one-hand tunes and start to get frustrated. This happened to me when I was about her age and I wound up quitting for several years. She's off to a lesson this evening and we're going to ask the instructor to push her a bit more in order to keep her engaged.
The younger one presents a different challenge. She has started the violin and, while she insists she likes it, can only be made to practice for a few minutes at a time before her attention starts to wander, butterfly-like. I begin to wonder whether its better to let her keep on, developing at a pretty slow pace, or to hang it up for a bit and wait for her to get a little older.
Then there's the three year old. She continues to state that she wants to learn the trumpet. God help us all.
Posted by Robert at August 24, 2005 04:38 PM | TrackBackHEY! Trumpet is God's instrument, buddy...
Posted by: Matt Hurley at August 24, 2005 04:56 PMMy daughter started learning to play the violin two years ago at age five. The first six months, or so, her practice sounded a lot like a cat being skinned alive. After that it got progressively better, and now after two years, her playing is very pleasant to listen to.
You just have to make it through that first few months . . .
Posted by: Dave at August 24, 2005 05:14 PMWait - I think I know that cat! But I'm leaning towards sticking it out nonetheless.
Posted by: Robbo the LB at August 24, 2005 05:21 PMTrumpet? Pshaw! My son plays the trombone.
Posted by: Rachel at August 24, 2005 07:24 PMMy boys have not yet discovered music (thank God). Neither of his parents are burdened with musical ability. I dated a girl in high school and college who had studied piano for eight plus years, and could play Mozart beautifully. She tried, without success, to teach me to play chopsticks.
Posted by: KMR at August 24, 2005 08:36 PMTrombone, eh? You know what they say...the lower the brass instrument, the lower the intelligence...
Brass humor...it is a difficult concept...
We learn by doing...
Posted by: Matt Hurley at August 25, 2005 08:41 AMI can easily think of instruments worse than the trumpet for the parents of a beginner:
1) French horn (if memory serves me correctly, the Guiness Book of World Records at some point ranked this and the oboe as the two most difficult instruments in Western music to learn to play)
2) drum set (my parents waited till I was 12 to buy mine, which I abandoned within 2 years to the relief of the entire neighborhood...)
3) in the words of Beck: "two turntables and a microphone..."
Posted by: LDH at August 25, 2005 09:53 AM
