Learning Music

Music lessons can be costly.  It is a long-term commitment, and I hesitate for the longest time to enroll my children in any of them.  

SW, seven, has picked up the violin when he entered Primary school this year.  They are weekly lessons conducted in groups, taught by an outsourced music teacher.  SW is fond of the teacher, Mr. Quek. The course fees at SGD105 per 10 lessons works well on my purse string.

We had never planned for SW to learn the violin.  SW wanted to learn to play the trumpet but his school only offered brass band as CCA for Primary 3s onwards.  For him to have a head start in music, I suggested the violin and he was keen.  Since then, he had been learning nearly a new song each week.  Here is a recording that I made of his playing recently.

Audio recording of SW playing violin: Go Tell Aunt Rhody

The greatest challenge in learning music - or every other thing, I suppose - is regularity of practice.  For a young child learning music, parental involvement is crucial.  Over the last few months, I have been diligent, negligent, encouraging, demoralizing, patient, touchy, in short, not exactly proud of myself.  But from these experiences, I have learnt that I have to sit with him and give him 100% of my attention when he practices.  It makes a whole world of difference whether he has an attentive audience.   For instance, it is different when I just yell out to him to 'get to practice' when I am still doing my laundry or trying to round up an email.  The attitude I received in return was sluggishness. 

My husband is a believer of Nature.  "If you need to push him to practice all the time, you might as well give it up!"  There is much truth in this because after a while, you realize you spend more effort trying to get your child to practice.  You start taking on the role of an authoritative and pushy parent and it makes you feel absolutely lousy, and you feel like giving up.

But of course, we must identify the cause of the sluggishness.  That was when I realized it was I who has forgotten the importance of being focused.  Once I got my child to focus on the instrument, and encouraging playing his best, then I spend less time trying to 'push' him to practice.   At this stage, I really have no idea how long it will take for him to cultivate the internal drive to pick up the instrument to practice everyday.  I could only take one step at a time.

My 5 year-old daughter, CH, is interested to play the keyboard.  Like in the case of my son, I did not jump straight into giving her formal piano lessons.  I have a Kurtzweil keyboard which I bought about 20 years ago with the first 3 months of salary from my first permanent job.  CH likes to play around with it, so I decided to try teaching her on my own.  

I recall attempting to teach her when she was 3 and 4, but they were flops.  She had refused to watch me demonstrate to her and insisted on playing in a haphazard way.  It was taking me too much efforts to coach her, so I let it go.  Now that she is 5, she seems more ready to listen and learn.  Perhaps she has realized she wasn't going anywhere on her own!

From the internet, I found PIANO BY NUMBERS.  I was tempted to take up the program, but decided to try using my own number notations to teach her instead.  In my younger days,  I used numbered scores to play some Chinese pop music.  Chinese instruments like the Er Hu also uses similar key notations, which is using numbers 1 to 7 to represent the notes C to B.  It was with this method of numbered key notations that I kicked start CH's home music lessons.

From there, CH learned to play some familiar nursery songs using her right hand: 

After about a month or two, CH was able to play Twinkle Twinkle Little Stars, Jingle Bells and 2 other Chinese folk songs (客人来，火车快飞) with her right hand.   Thereof, we moved on to these books which I bought from Yamaha Music School:

I picked this series upon my sister's recommendation as they are suitable for young beginners.  There are colorful pictures and child-friendly layouts with fun-filled activities.  With basic background in music, I was able to set her off in picking up the keyboard.  As to how far we will go with this, and for how long, again, we will take one step at a time!  

Toccata and Fugue in D minor

One day, I was playing alone in the attic and discovered some cassette tapes. They belonged to my dad.

I must have been nine years old then. Idle and curious, I inserted the tapes into a nearby portable cassette player. There must have been about twenty tapes. One by one, I listened.

I came upon a J.S. Bach, with a picture of Bach on it. The first piece was Toccata and Fugue in D minor, on organ.

I didn't listen to it for more than a few seconds the first time. I went through the rest of the tapes and came back to Bach. I let it play for a few more seconds. What a long piece of music, I had thought. Back then, I was only listening to ABBA and Bee Gees on our way to school in the family car with my cousins. Classical music* to me was totally alien.

Then came Fugue. It was the most harmonious music I had ever heard. Didn't know it was Fugue until I started learning music later on. Fugue made me fall in love with music for the first time. I stared at the face of Bach and wondered who this great person was. I liked listening to music, but I had never appreciated music like I did with Toccata and Fugue. I continued listening to the rest of the tape, but I always came back to this unique piece.

Toccata makes you feel alert and tense, demanding your attention. The notes are mesmerizingly fast and rhythmically unpredictable. Each verse is a story in itself. Fugue is romantic and beautiful it makes you want to spin and soar to the sky. Toccata and Fugue is like life itself, full of contradiction, unpredictability, adventure, tense at times, yet beautiful, humorous and fun.

I must have played that music for more than a hundred times. The tape wore out eventually. But my love of music stay on.

I found this visual piece on Youtube recently. Click on the title of this post to link. It is fun and inspiring - even to watch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipzR9bhei_o

* Classical music is a general term. J.S. Bach is from the Baroque period.

Recommended Books

Can You Hear It?
Author: William Lach
Publisher: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York, 2006
No. of Pages: 39
Included: Audio CD with 13 Tracks

This Book is highly recommended for parents who are keen to introduce their children to Music and Art. It is suitable for all ages, but young children especially, will find it intriguing as their senses are stimulated when they view the art pieces with the incorporation of appropriate music!

Many parents get their children to learn a musical instrument. However, how can parents guide their children in music appreciation? 'Can You Hear It?' is certainly one of the ways to begin with! Going beyond aural appreciation,this book introduces your child to a world of imagination and visualization! For parents, it is undoubtedly an eye-opener too!

Content:

Helpful descriptions and questions on each page assist parents in guiding their children. Track numbers are clearly indicated on each art piece to aid track selection or search.

The use of key instrument(s) in each piece of music is included in the brief description. For example in one of the pages, there is the use of Kettledrums. Not sure what instrument that is? You need no further research! All the mentioned instruments are included in the book for extra reading with photographs to show your child! And if you wish to know more about each of the Art and Music Masterpieces, the write-up is included on the end pages too!

Keen observation and an eye for details are skills which are important in creations. Activities like 'spot the difference' and 'I spy' are our favourites. We would sometimes compete to see who spots them first. When I came across this series of books, they went straight into my wish list. Not only do they provide similar fun and benefits, the books contain masterpieces that I could introduce and expose my kids to!

Other Titles in this Series:
Can You Find It
Can You Find It Inside?
Can You Find It Outside?
Can You Find It Too?