Over the weekend, I had discussed with my husband that at some point I would like to get our son a recorder.  I meant sometime in the next one to two years.  I did not mean, first thing Monday morning!

 

I had planned on allowing this rather musically inclined child (he has memorized and is able to humm every song on Zelda) to play around with such things as Maraccas and bells first.  However, that is not what happened.

 

As my husband was buying himself a new guitar today, he up and decided that he would buy our son a recorder too.  It wasn't expensive, I think less than $5 for the plastic version.  The owner of the music store offered my husband a book with the recorder in order to be able to learn to play it.  My wonderful hubby quickly responded, "oh we don't need that, my wife knows how to play it. She will teach him."  That response was only about 1/2 way true.  Yes, I did learn it...in Elementary school.  For several years, I could play "Three Blind Mice" rather well.  However, that was the ONLY song I could play, the only three keys that I could remember are BAG, those are the keys for that song. 

 

When my hubby came home with that recorder, my son was ecstatic.  It was just like the Occarina that Link uses on Zelda.  (see now why I wanted to get my son this instrument).  My husband promptly told our son, "get your mommy to teach you how to play it".  My son hands me the recorder and says, "here mommy, you play".  I tried...I really did, however, I soon discovered that I could not play my little song anymore...I could only play about 1/2 of it!  So, with such a discovery, I handed the instrument back to my son.

 

It soon became obvious that I could teach him his very first lesson...how to make sound come out of the recorder and not his mouth.  With him being a "hummer", his instict was to "humm" with the recorder in his mouth, not blow through the mouth piece.  I kept correcting him, and once he got that little thing to make the first sound, both him and his younger brother were thrilled.  This was a nice new toy!  It squealed and sqeaked, and whistled! 

 

For a while I listned to my older son shreak with it.  I never said a word, no matter how much it hurt my ears.  I kept reminding myself that this was necessary, he must learn to make a sound come from it before he could learn to play it.  The more he practiced making that sound, the better he would get at remembering to blow through the instrument and not try humming with it.  He did eventually grow tired of practicing this, and put the instrument away.  However, this was NOT the end of the shreaking in my house today.

 

My younger son decided he wanted to try it.  The only fair thing to do was allow him to try.  It took him longer to make the sound come out, but he did eventually figure it out, sort of.  I suppose the benefit was that his shreaking wasn't as constant as his brother's was, as he would forget from time to time to blow through the mouth piece and not around the mouth piece, or he would inevitably cover up the hole where the sound comes out.  However, unlike his brother, he didn't want to just try it for a little while and then put it away for the rest of the day.  Oh no, RR was more content to give about a 5 min. break between the shreaking experiments...his philosophy being, "how high can I make this shrill?".

 

I have realized that the joys of children and music have only began in my home.  I must now relearn to play this instrument myself, and then teach notes and songs to my children.  My husband figures that once they learn this instrument, he will buy a child's sized guitar.  And my younger son has stated that he would like to learn to play fiddle.  He's currently 4, so I don't think I have to worry about him and that instrument too soon, however...this is not quite the end of the story.

 

My husband purchased a fiddle for himself last week.  Now, as talented as he is in music, he has not yet learned this instrument.  In fact, he forgot to purchase drop peg for it, so it inevitably comes out of tune every time he practices.  Can you imagine what an out of tune violin sounds like in the hands of someone who is learning the instrument?  Well, that's about what an out of tune fiddle sounds like in the hands of my husband.

 

So, today, I got the joys of listening to the shreaks and squeals coming from two kids and a soprano recorder as well as a beginner playing an out of tune fiddle...all at the same time.