Day Seventeen in Days of Joy

The Sound of Music

Example not lecture. Children learn by imitating. Both true, as this experience has shown. I have always longed for all of us to have enough interest in music to each play and enjoy a musical instrument. My approach was paying for lessons for interested parties and poking around a bit on the piano I dreamed of having in the house for years. Interest waxed and waned, lamely, on a very small scale.

Yes, I noticed that if I wanted to practice piano, I would soon have little hands all wanting to pound on it too. But until I began a penny whistle program to teach myself* and then the children, and encouraged my husband to take those guitar lessons he'd always wanted to take, there was not much happening musically in our house. All of a sudden, our walls echo with music. The two piano students seem to occupy that instrument non-stop, the guitar players are constantly strumming and the recorders, harmonicas, and yes, penny whistles, are blowing melodies at all hours of the day.

I am amazed, I am grateful, I may be going deaf, but it is with the sound of music in my ears.

* The penny whistle program is called Living Music From the Heart, it is by Jodie Mesler. Her blog/order site is: www.homemusicmaking.blogspot.com, I highly recommend it!