My husband informed me last week that he’d talked to one of the piano teachers at the music store where he works, and gotten the Dianasaur signed up for piano lessons (or “piano school,” as she calls it).
My family is thrilled. It’s obvious that she’s inherited her father’s musical genes. They’ve been asking for a while if we were ever going to enroll her in some lessons of some sort, and the answer has always been “yes, when she’s ready.” Well, she is. She had her first lesson today, and she LOVED it.
The teacher is a young woman that my daughter is already familiar with, having been to the music store with my husband on several occasions. The fact that my daughter already knows this woman helped, I think. The Dianasaur has been talking about going to piano school every day since she got signed up. Man, she was geeked.
You know something, though? I think I was just as geeked as she was. She was just SO excited about it. Made me feel like I was doing something right for a change.
When she gets older, I’d like to start her on drum lessons. She loves to play drums, too. But she’s a little too short for a kit just yet. Maybe next year.
That’s wonderful, Persephone! She’s at a good age to start - what is she, three or four now? I didn’t start on the cello until I was eight, and then out of my own volition. If my parents had started me earlier, maybe I wouldn’t have sucked so bad later on.
I would love to hear her play at future Michigan DopeFests!
That’s wonderful, Persephone! She’s at a good age to start - what is she, three or four now? I didn’t start on the cello until I was eight, and then out of my own volition. If my parents had started me earlier, maybe I wouldn’t have sucked so bad later on.
I would love to hear her play at future Michigan DopeFests!
Hey, that’s great! My daughter has been studying piano for a year now. She started right after she turned 4. She enjoys it very much and has a pretty large repertoire of songs at this point. She is even learning to read music. It’s amazing how quickly kids soak this stuff up. She is the youngest student in her teacher’s student role by at least a full year.
It’s really great that your husband is a musician himself. Neither Mrs. QS nor I are musicians but any stretch of the imagination. We both studied music as children but not for very long and have forgotten almost everything. For us it’s like learning to play from scratch. So we sit and practice every evening with our daughter and we all learn together. It’s really a lot of fun.
Hope you and your daughter find it as rewarding as we have so far.
Wow, Perseph, that’s great. Good for her and you and your husband and the whole world. I started piano when I was 5 or so (a young age to start, in that day and age) and studied till I was 17. I didn’t pursue music as a vocation, but I’m glad I can read music and appreciate it from the inside out, as it were. It’s like knowing a second language, really.
This kind of education, no matter how brief, is ever wasted. You go, girl! I’m proudaya both!
Took both kids up to the music store today, to pick my husband up from work. My husband took a ukelele down from the wall and let our 19-month-old son strum on it. The boy looked SO FREAKING CUTE with that thing, and man, did he ever dig it. A stringed instrument just his size. And he was even holding it properly.
So, I imagine that next payday, we’ll be purchasing a uke.
I didn’t mention that, IMHO, anyone who studies music should orient themselves on a keyboard at some time in their studies. Yes, I’m a keyboard chauvinist, but I also honestly believe that keyboard orientation is vital. Keyboard instruments have been basic to music for centuries – first organs and harpsichords and then pianos and electronic keyboards. The visual correlation between the keys and the notation is better than with any other instrument, I believe.
I’ll admit it’s hampered me some. I wanted to learn guitar so badly when I was in high school, but the fingering of the chords made no sense to me. Nor did scales and individual notes. I kept wanting to relate it to the keyboard somehow and couldn’t. But on the whole I think being familiar with the keyboard is a solid grounding for music study.
I took four years of piano lessons, from ages six to ten, and violin for four years after that. Then, being a stupid teenager, I quit music altogether for a stupid teenage reason. Then three semesters ago, at 23, I started singing in the choir for the hell of it, and found out that I actually can sing so I decided to minor in music for the hell of it. I needed a minor, and I was enjoying myself so much it would have been criminal NOT to pursue it. I’ve had one semester of voice, and it’s so much FUN when it all works! And I’m picking back up with the violin come fall semester. I’m so excited, I can’t wait!
And no, I’m not changing my major now, I’m finally a junior. If I really want to I’ll go back and get another degree later. All that theory, though…shudder
Mercutio: I agree. She does kinda have an upright bass attitude. She actually loves bass, which absolutely thrills my husband. Before she was born, I asked him what he wanted–a boy or a girl. His answer: “a bass player.”
