The birdie lady (complete with back tattoo)
This evening my ears were treated to the sweet sound of both children practicing their instruments without being nagged. I’ve no idea what triggered it and am not jumping up and down punching the air, just happy to bask in a moment of parental pride. We’d had a funny sing-song last week with my new found busking skills (!) I’d pulled out a ‘Four Chord Tricks’ book and was banging away at some old favourites but the song that had the kids hooked was our gutsy rendition of Dolly Parton’s ‘Jolene’ ! Must have been all the melodrama paired with my terrible devil- may- care strumming .
The next day when Max was begrudgingly practicing his uke chords and I was trying to enthuse him he came up with an elaborate story about a ‘lonely village in cowboy film’ to explain why he was playing so slowly. It was brilliant and I was gob smacked….that’s right !! I cried….just lose yourself. Perhaps that’s a way to get on board with today’s kids….imagine it’s a soundtrack?….kids technology is so visually stimulating …. could they try making music to sound muted moving images on tv or a computer? We’ll have to give it a go.
This week was also a voyage of discovery into old music technology. Max had been playing with his grand dad’s old radio for a while when he discovered the cassette player. We hauled a stack of cassettes out of the attic and let him carry on experimenting. The sound was awful but Max wasn’t bothered, he was enjoying turning it up loud without being yelled at. Twenty minutes or so later we heard some door slamming and a wail of pure frustration. Max came storming in. ‘What’s up?’ I said, looking into his very angry face ‘The STUPID THING won’t move onto the next song, it keeps going past it!’
……..Here I have to add that his sister just wrecked yet another CD player and … how many discs I wonder?
Sunnie Minim's Musical Adventures 