It is 7pm and dinner has been made, but not eaten. I'm astonished at how relaxing it is around here when A takes Nina to the park. It's sunny, and about 10C, out there. I am trying to adopt the attitude that this is SUMMER. 16C at midday, and sunny: about as good as it gets around here, or at least, as good as it's been for the last 2 years. It does occasionally reach 20+, but only for a few isolated, unpredictable days. Our Augusts have been so rainy that our luggage (!) and our shoes (!) and our coats (!) went moldy. Yep, mold is NOT just for fruit, or things left too long in the fridge, around here. According to google, mold doesn't have a natural predator. Can this be true? Anything that ate mold in this country would take the place over. I'll have to go on Ask A Biologist and find out. Meanwhile, in line with the pretense that it is in fact summer, we're taking Nina to the park a lot, eating lunch in the gardens on campus, and generally making an effort to be outside. So he went out and I turned on BBC3 and made a simple dinner.
Every time I try to re-involve my life with music I can't imagine it not being there. At home I used to be an avid CBC2 listener, and I particularly loved Disc Drive with Jurgen Gothe, and Music for a While with Danielle Charbonneau. They've changed it all now - Shelagh Rogers doesn't do the morning one any more since they got rid of Take 5 (which I liked), in favour of Studio Sparks or whatever ... but that was all ages ago and now a lot of it is jazz/world/rock. I like jazz, and "world" (is that like "ethnic"? meaning, not white? or what? aren't we in the "world", and wasn't Beethoven, too?) Anyway, it's all different and I'm all gone, and all that. And I haven't gotten familiar enough with BBC3's programming to listen regularly, but I've just re-read An Equal Music by Vikram Seth, and have again decided that I have to reconnect with music somehow ... Lately BBC3 has been just the thing. I imagine, like in Seth's book, that children across the UK who otherwise might not hear classical music are out there somewhere, in villages, in cities, listening to Piazzolla, to Lieder, hearing the sound of voices joining and thinking: I have to be part of that. So tonight I might finally make it to my Irish music jam. And I've been slowly and sporadically working on a few projects: teaching myself basic harmony (much progress has been made and I can now harmonise simple Christmas carols and folk songs pretty quickly, not that the resulting arrangements are terribly interesting), practicing scales and arpeggios with my eyes closed (really helpful! and not as boring as with eyes open), planning to start transcribing music I hear (I got as far as printing out blank sheet music pages) ... And of course I want to work out how to best expose Nina to music. She can play around on the piano, saying "bam! bam!" as she hits the keys hard, and "pling pling pling" as she plays them softly. She can mimic simple rhythms. She can try dance and sway her arms, sort-of in time (so cute). She can sing "twinkle twinkle" in tune, with a mish-mash of words from abc's to twinkles to yes sir yes sir three bags full. She sings a few other little phrases, life is but a dream ...
Any advice? How do I bring music into her life in a fun way? I wish I'd had music lessons much earlier, not that I want to force it on her.
Oh, and another thing: on Saturday, A and I and a friend started this program. Just so you know, I'm not doing the full ones, but they are. So far, so good - and I'm surprised by how many different muscles got just that bit sore. The goal is to be able to do 100 by Nina's 2nd birthday, approximately 8 weeks away. I will add healthy eating, regular running, developing upper body strength, transcribing music, learning more classical harmony, learning introductory jazz harmony (after probably some simple blues), music games with Nina ... baking bread ... and a million work-related things ... to my ever-growing list of projects. Hmmmm...
5 comments:
Two comments:
My parents started me on piano when I was 4 (and then let me take almost a year break at my request when I was 5). I came back to it on my own and as you know am very thankful for such an early start. I can't say enough how glad I am I learned to read music when I was still learning to read English. Don't push, but I'd start her young young young!
And... I like the hundred pushups/situps etc site! I signed up... I'm jess_d on the site... I don't know if it will stick but we'll see. good luck on yours!
Yeah. My parents started me later, I think I was 8, and I wish it had been earlier. We moved ... and they didn't want to push things on me, and whatever -- you can't know what kids will want when they're older -- but I feel like I would have been a much better musician and that would have been so great. I'm just glad I got as much music as I did, especially with the choirs and lessons too :)
Hey, Caroline, just found your blog.
Like all people without children, I am full of opinions on how people with children should act as parents. I think watching you include music in your daily life is also going to have a large impact on Nina as she grows up and tries to imitate you. Or at least, that should work until she's an adolescent. Good luck!
-- matt
PS: In what way do you participate in the Irish music sessions?
Hi Matt! thanks for the comment! The Irish music night is something you'd probably only find in the UK - it's sort of a jam night, at a pub. People drink and chat and music gets played by whoever wants to join in and play along, usually a core of about 5 people with 5 or more others with instruments. Sometimes people sing, either alone, with others, or with some of the instrumentalists improvising an accompaniment. I sing sometimes, usually Canadian folk songs I remember from childrens' choirs. It's so great, but it's moved farther from our place so now I don't go as much. I'll miss it if we move, though...
Hey, Caroline. I've heard of jam sessions like that in Canada; there's a québécois near here that I keep meaning to make it to, but I don't know the words to the songs and don't play any appropriate instrument so I lack motivation. I was actually wondering if you were singing or had taken up the fiddle since we last spoke. :) Sounds fun, though.
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