Sunday, July 4, 2010

Mini Music Man

In all honesty I expected the Little Guy to grow up with some reasonable level of musical ability. It is in his DNA. With 2 parents who dabble in music at various levels and growing up in/around the church where praising God with music is a huge part of worship life there really isn't a way not to at least appreciate music.
From the moment he was born (very litterally the moment) he's had music to listen to every step of the way. When choosing the place of birth one of the selling points of the clinic was that they encourage you to bring in special music either on iPod or CD to play while you are there.
At home I've used music for everything from setting to the tone of day (upbeat songs) and night (instrumental guitar) to using little songs for clean-up time and brushing teeth. Kids love music and in our situation the Little Guy usually responds faster to a song as a cue than a spoken request.
In our play space we have a box of instruments. Sometimes I will switch what is in the box but the keyboard, guitar and tamborine are always there. Whenever possible I try to get instruments that have a nice sounds since we will be hearing a lot of them!
When he was under a year old I would occasionally direct his attention to the box and then let him explore freely. As he got bigger we started to play together as we would sing favorite songs. Since turning two he has become the instigator of the musical sessions - sometimes with an adult and sometimes on his own.
On this day he got out the box and set up a musical circle so all of the instruments were within arm's reach. For about an hour he played and sang. The first half hour or so was like to videos below. After that he started asking me to join in and requesting various songs.
It is amazing to me how particular he already is with his musical tastes. He has a style, tempo and even particilar verses in mind before we start!

The keyboard is playing songs and he is drumming along. In the 2nd video he tries to sign and sing "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" but the keyboard got ahead of him but he caught up in the end.

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