Busy B

Day 281

26 February 2010

My daughter is becoming keen on the idea of learning to play an instrument. She's talked about the piano, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, and recorder.

Today I showed her how to play a tune on the recorder. Well, it was more about tone and rhythm than melody. It was the first tune I learned to play, from the recorder book I still have, since I started learning at the age of eight. She played it back to me almost perfectly, including the right way to produce the rhythm.

When I was a child, I loved to play with any musical instrument I could get my hands on. I put this enthusiasm largely down to my music teacher at St.Georges school, a brilliant teacher called Val Greenleaves. She inspired me to learn recorder, treble recorder, flute, and yearn for piano lessons. She taught me to read music, and she had unending patience for all of the squeaky, tuneless recorder-playing she must have encountered with us over the years! She was one of the teachers in my childhood who had a hugely positive impact on my education.

The enthusiasm has never left me, but the time to sit and practice, obviously has. I still want to learn to play the piano, the harp, the bassoon, the cello, the violin...perhaps not in this lifetime, but it's good to have ambition!