A fantasy that never came true for me is that my family of three children, my wife, and I would make music together. It just didn’t happen, largely because it wasn’t of sufficient priority. I’m afraid that music was just “my own thing”. I didn’t really try at all to pull together a family musical group, even though all of us except one child have explored singing and/or instrument playing.
We home-schooled our children. “We” is generous to me, because it was my wife who home-schooled the children, somewhere between one half and two thirds of all of their schooling years. Home-schooling offered a great opportunity for me to encourage musicianship in my children, but I didn’t take good advantage of that opportunity. I didn’t push music on my children.
It wasn’t our home-schooling style to push anything very hard on our children, because we trusted that in pursuing what was most compelling to themselves, our children would achieve greater self-fulfillment, and we inherently trusted that they would do right. Our children all have strong minds and wills of their own, that do not need to answer to their parent’s expectations. Does that sound risky? Well, maybe were just lucky that these three children have all turned out to be great young adults. Or, maybe it was good that we didn’t get in their way, so that they didn’t have to go out of the way to dramatically rebel against us.
So, my half-hearted fantasy of our family making music together wasn’t fulfilled. It wasn’t important enough to me to force it on my family; and it would probably have backfired anyway. This is a strong-willed bunch of family members here. I have no big regrets about this.
Also, there has nevertheless been plenty of music in our family, not just counting the sounds of my piano echoing through the house. My wife and youngest son, David, are always humming tunes. All of our family members listen to their favorite styles of music. My two sons have sung in choirs, and mess with the guitar some.
I did make an honest attempt to lure David into piano playing. We used to play what we called White and Black Keys. Starting at about 5 years old, David would improvise a melody on the white keys while I’d play an accompaniment on my second piano. As long as my accompaniment was centered in C-major or A-minor, David’s melody sounded good; and he always played with a nice synchronized rhythm. We were really jamming together! After playing on the white keys for a while, I’d say, “Get ready. Now. Black keys!” and we’d jam together on just the black keys. This was a good starting point to lead into note reading, which I attempted to teach to David; but sight-reading didn’t work out. I wasn’t going to push it on David. Black and White keys sure were fun with David for the three or four years we did that together.
Many of you will have much more successful stories to tell than mine. Please do share with other readers how you succeeded in forming a family music group.
4 responses so far ↓
1 Jim Plamondon // Apr 5, 2008 at 2:05 am
Mark –
The “family band” is an opportunity that I hope the Thummer (www.thummer.com) can help make happen — perhaps for your childrens’ families.
- Becasue the Thummer can sound like any instrument, it can be used for every part in the family band.
- Because ThumLine notation is the same in every octave and key, family members can start with the easy voices (i.e., simple bass lines) and advance to complex solo parts without ever having to transition from one clef to another, or having notation in the wrong key (due to the strange fossilized notation of “transposing instruments”).
- Because the Thummer and ThumLine have the potential to be so much easier to learn and play, they may be particularly well-suited to suited to home-school environments, in which parents are unlikely to have degrees in music education.
- Because the Thummer has unmatched expressive potential, the student can carry her performance skills to greater heights of virtuosity than with any other instrument.
This is not to say that everyone in a family band would have to play a Thummer; us older traditional types might want to stick with the guitars, keyboards, and wind instruments that we already know. Rather, I’m saying that everyone COULD play the Thummer, without sacrificing expressive power, a wide variety of timbres, or per-instrument polyphony (i.e., having one instrument play many notes, which is awfully useful in any band’s rhythm section). That has never been possible before.
With Thumtronics’ innovations, the path of the next generation might be just a little bit smoother, allowing them to go just a little bit farther.
And isn’t that the whole point?
Thanks!
Jim Plamondon
CEO, Thumtronics Inc
The New Shape of Music(tm)
http://www.thummer.com
Austin, Texas
2 Everyday Mark // Apr 7, 2008 at 11:10 pm
I believe that Jim’s Thummer does hold a lot of promise as an easy-to-learn instrument that is rich its capability to make music.
All three of my children enjoyed the Melody Harp Lap. It has 15 strings for two octaves. The sheet music for a tune is placed underneath the strings, showing the musician which string to pluck next. It’s a satisfying why for a young person to make music. I can certainly recommend it; and the instrument is very reasonably priced and widely available.
The recorder is another great first instrument, and ideal for a family ensemble.
If you have some tips about helping your children get started with enthusiasm for making music, please share them here!
Cheers
– Mark
3 inkles // Jun 23, 2009 at 4:02 am
Consider introducing little ones to an ocarina. Our son didn’t have the dexterity needed for recorder, but was fascinated by the ocarina. We bought him a ‘polyoc’ and ‘Play your Ocarina - book 1′ from here: http://www.ocarinaworkshop.com/
The fingering for the ocarina is printed below the sheet music in the ‘Play your Ocarina Book 1′, so he was able to move onto sheet music with no difficulty. He worked through book 1 in an afternoon, and then moved onto playing through recorder tutor books on his ocarina. He now plays clarinet, but music for him started with the ocarina. (The best bit about an ocarina is when you overblow it goes quiet, unlike a recorder.)
inkles
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Music Notation T-Shirts: inkles.zazzleblogs.com
4 Learn To Play The Ocarina! | 7Wins.eu // Aug 12, 2009 at 10:40 am
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