Monday 8 October 2012

Strike up the band

I love 'at home' days when the girls can simply take the time to potter around and do their own thing.
It invariably leads to fabulous games of imagination where they set up a house, an office or in this case, an orchestra.

Making music is a very serious thing!
The guy who lives here comes from a very musical family, VERY!
He plays clarinet and piano, his dad and a niece play violin, his mum plays piano, another niece plays flute and one nephew plays trumpet while two others play saxophone.
Me, well I am pretty good on maracas...

The girls have been learning piano, but just casually with their dad, as a family friend who is a music teacher (and who recently wrote an opera score - I mean really!) advises for the best results and longevity of playing an instrument, it is best to delay starting until at least seven years of age, preferably eight.

The instrument of choice for the four-year-old is always triangle
Which is why I love to see them setting up this impromptu orchestra, I want them to feel music is fun, not something that is a chore or to be dreaded.

It should be noted they were all using different sheet music! And barely a sound note was played, but they had a lovely time.

Recorder is apparently another good starting place for learning an instrument
You can see in the pic below they even bought their own audience along.

They happily played their 'music' for a good 45 minutes.
Yep, lucky us, 45 minutes of screeching recorder sounds and triangle bagning...

Hmmm - look at the finger placement - no wonder there was screeching!
I particularly love this type of play because these days kids have so much structure and organised play in their lives.
This reminds them that it is possible to make their own fun.

What do your kids like to play when they are left to their own devices??

8 comments:

Cas said...

very cute :)interesting fact about holding off until he age of 7/8. good tip to keep in mind :)

rachelmp said...

Recorders are only allowed to be practiced outside at our house. Our kids like to set up disco's especially if Ayden will dj.

Cass said...

OMG the recorder, brings back memories. Charlotte is playing the trombone at school and loving it (after a year of trumpet last year) and they are doing recorder in music class at the moment and I had to buy them both recorders because apparently the school ones are manky. Neither Jeff or I are musical so its nice to hear Charlotte practising the trombone and she is actually pretty good, you can pick what song she is playing

Trudy said...

Oh, love the impromptu concerts!! We've just had a bit of violin tonight : -)

Kylie said...

It looks like a great time was had by all. I do hope that your ears have recovered.
My two enjoy playing the odd instrument as well. We have just been given a keyboard and I really should look at getting a piano back in the house (I learnt piano for many years and my brother is very musical - give him an instrument and he can play it, it make me sick)
Another fun game here at the moment is finding treasure and being pirates in the sand pit. It is amazing how many hours a $2 bag of coloured stones can bring.

Cath said...

Last week in the holidays I had my fair share of listening to loud pot and wooden spoon music going on here, interspersed with maracas, tambourines, etc. Today Miss L is home sick so they are in her room with a teddy tea party and selected a playschool cd for some sing-along music. Love Miss L's new dress - such beautiful fabric and all their new cossies too! I have so many patterns to try but alas the paint fumes of the kitchen are calling me to apply another coat! Bye... C x

Dianne said...

My boys tend to play lego/Starwars/Harry Potter games when it is just the 2 of them (lots of jedi training - jumping around the backyard with long sticks!). The interesting thing is how the play changes when there are girls here (thankfully most of their closest friends are girls!) - totally different style of creative & imaginative play - cafes and pet shops and zoos mainly!
Re: music - our school offers outsourced keyboard lessons at school - basic, but a good introduction & fairly inexpensive. The 11 year old did a term in grade 2 & lost interest, but the now 9 year old started teaching himself with his brother's music books in the holidays, & taught himself the recorder when I showed him a few notes & he read a book on how to play. So we signed him up with the local piano teacher last year and he loves it! Of course, he l has learnt to play both the Harry Potter & Star wars theme music!

Milly said...

My kids play the usual type of imagination ges: schools, shops etc. it helps that 'screens' are allowed in certain rooms of the house and only a certain amount of screen time allowed per day. As for music, miss 12 and I do piano lessons together in a group environment. Really unusual learning style that we both enjoy. We've been going for 3 years, miss 9 started with same teacher 1 year ago (with a group of 9 other children).