Music pt.2

Fast forward to having kids...I didn't get them a piano at an early age, but I did expose them to good music. They listened to good music from the womb. Good music doesn't always mean classical music either, though that is how I was trained when I took lessons. My dad didn't let us listen to the radio back in the day. We listened to recordings of Sarah Vaughn, Billie Holliday, Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie and the like. In fact, I remember telling the kids at school about who we saw on The Lawrence Welk show the night before the way kids talk about American Idol today. My friends however were not at all excited about my music. (I only talked about Mr. Welk once, I learn fast!) We listened to classical music often, and my dad was a big fan of Barbra Streisand. I tried to instill the same things in my kids, exposing them to the best of whatever music was out there. We liked all kinds of music, from Hard Rock to R&B to Country and everything in between, but we just listened to the best of each genre. At the time I didn't think it had much of an affect on my sons.

Boy was I wrong to think that! It started with my oldest son. My husband would sing to him at bedtime to rock him to sleep. At some point in time, he would sing the song "I Swear" by the group All-4-One. My son must have been about 9 months old when we were in the car and the song came on. I was talking to my mom and would arbitrarily changed the channel. My son cried and screamed. I couldn't figure out what was wrong with him. Nothing else was on the radio so I ended up turning it back to that song and he abruptly stopped complaining! Then I realized it was my changing the song that made him upset. I changed it again just to test my hypothesis and low and behold he started up again. When I changed back, he stopped. A music lover was born and had 9 months old he had a preference! He continues to love music and has taught himself to play the guitar! My youngest sou has taught himself to play the piano and guitar and both of them want to play the violin. They love all different types of music. Good music.

One of our favorite activities is to go to Sam Ash Music Store and pick out sheet music and play all the instruments. We can literally stay there (and have) for hours! Even though I wasn't able to pursue my goal of becoming a music therapist, I'm glad I was able to share my love of music with my children the way my dad shared it with me! It's more than a day's work, it's a life's work!

Until next time!
Carmen