A Taste for Music

I started teaching William to play the piano around the beginning of the school year and he has really taken off with it.  It is so fun to see him excited about playing, and gratifying to see how quickly he catches on and what a good sense for music he has.  Often the first thing he does when he goes upstairs in the morning is to sit down at the piano, and he goes back to it constantly throughout the day.

Isaac has also been "taking lessons" although with him I do a lot more little games, or whatever he decides our lesson should be for the day.  William insisted on me teaching him one of the songs from Harry Potter, and he has in turn taught Isaac the beginning of it.  On Sunday at the end of church just after we finished practicing for the primary program, Isaac sat down at the piano and played the Harry Potter song and it was so funny to see his primary teacher's (also a piano teacher) look of surprise when she saw who it was playing. 

In the last few weeks we have started listening to the Suzuki piano book 1 CD and also listening to the CD that goes with the Alfred book I've been teaching William from.  Between them playing the piano and the CD's being played the music is pretty continuous.  Sometimes it gets a little old, but for the most part I absolutely love it.  It makes me smile to hear William sing "Hey Rock and Roll Man" along with the CD and to hear him try to figure out some of the harder songs we haven't gotten to yet (and he usually can figure them out).  I don't even mind listening to the Twinkle Variations over and over because I LOVE that they like to listen to them. 

Even Elijah gets into the music.  He always dances to it, and lately has started "singing" along with the Suzuki CD in the car.  I can't even stand how cute it is. 

Tonight while running an errand, I had the classical music station on in the car and at first they were playing songs from musicals which is always fun to listen to.  They then started playing music from movies with political themes which isn't quite as exciting as The Lion King, but William was still engrossed. He guessed some of the instruments that he heard in the music, and when we stopped he asked if we could please just listen till the song was over.  Isaac passed out minutes after we got into the car or I'm sure he would have enjoyed it too. I'll often be station jumping in the car and he will ask me to stop on the classical songs.

I am so glad that my kids enjoy music.  I love that they have dance parties with their Dad to the kind of music I rarely listen to, and that they get to have a taste of so many different kinds of music.  I love to listen to classical, broadway and mild popular music like Mindy Gledhill.  Chris has a completely eclectic taste in music from folk music to techno, and my kids get to listen to all of it! Pretty cool if you ask me!