Music Class

I've always known that our kids would only learn music if I taught them.  We don't have options for music lessons here, and although my husband loves and appreciates music, he can't read music and simply doesn't know music theory.  So I've always known the lot would fall to me as long as we're living in Africa.

And it has.  The lot has fallen to me.  This year I officially started teaching music to our kids!

Music class has become one of my favorite parts of the week.  It's reawakened my love of music.  I've found myself missing the chance to play my cello, I've been flexing my piano fingers (because I'm also teaching piano to these kids), and getting more acquainted with the guitar (because I'm also teaching guitar to these kids).  It's been a huge reminder of how much I love music and want my kids to love music too!

My mom, who was an elementary music teacher for years, supplied me with some basic "music class essentials" and made my job much easier than it would have been otherwise.  I hauled a box of her music stuff across the ocean and we use it every week in my music class with the four oldest MKs.

There are many days when I'm winging it, making it up as I go.  But there's so much to learn when a kid's music knowledge is next to nothing, so the bar is low and anything I teach is increasing their knowledge!  I've been going through all the instruments and finding videos on YouTube that show how they're played and what they sound like.  We spent several weeks learning about string instruments - my personal favorite - and now we're on to wind instruments.  

We had planned a music field trip to attend a band concert at a boarding school where a friend of ours is in the band, but coronavirus ruined those plans.  So we just keep watching videos on YouTube - everything from watching a string quartet play Mozart, Ricky Skaggs dominating the bluegrass scene, how to put together a saxophone, and the University of Michigan marching band halftime show!  It's been a lot of fun.

And of course they're learning music theory.  Notes, clefs, keys, dynamics, time signatures...  This job has been incredibly easier for me because an intern (a friend of the Webber family) was here last fall and did initial teaching on these points.  She's also the one who started them on piano and guitar, which means I got to jump in after the foundations were laid and am helping to maintain that basic knowledge and teach them even more.

Once a week I spend a couple hours doing piano practice with all four kids too.  And they're all making progress!  It's very gratifying.  Granted, the progress is slow since we can only work on it once a week (which is all the time and energy I can afford), but progress is progress and I am pleased.  Kudos to the Webbers for making their keyboard available to us all!

Asa is clamboring to play piano and guitar like the big kids, but I'm making him wait because, let's be honest, I've got enough on my plate right now.  But someday soon he'll be able to join the ranks of missionary kids under the musical tutelage of Mama Horn!