Music Instruction

My dog has fleas...

I finally got my act in gear enough to put a five week plan together for this year's music instruction. The general format will be the same as what we did last year, except now we will be adding more instrument work.

EM has never been all that interested in learning how to play an instrument. We have a good variety in our home to choose from, but he wasn't especially drawn to any. I realize that not everyone will be a musician, but I wanted him to have at least some basic instruction and plenty of exposure to music. Last year we bought him a ukulele for his birthday when he seemed to want to play. My husband taught him one song, and then EM tucked it away in his room. Now we went ahead and bought a beginner's ukulele book and hope to engage his interest a little more. But I must say, ukuleles are weird! The tuning makes no sense to me.

I don't want to work...

JT will continue to learn to play the drums. We finally signed him up for lessons with a local teacher. This teacher played with a well-known rock band, and continues to work as a professional musician. JT absolutely LOVES his lessons. After the catastrophe that was piano lessons, it is wonderful to see him so happy to learn to play an instrument. In fact, this week his lesson had to be moved a day later due to a schedule conflict and he was not at all happy that he had to wait that extra 24 hours.

The more 'bookish' part of our music instruction will take place for the next five weeks. We will continue our study of past American musicians and use BrainPOP to learn about things like time signatures, reading music, and musical styles. But when the five weeks have ended, the learning will not. The boys will continue their individual studies, JT with his professional lessons and EM learning from my husband. We will also attend the Young Person's Concert put on by the Harrisburg Symphony, as well as any other local performances that come along.

Music is a pretty integral part of our life. Just like most of the other subjects I teach as a homeschooling mom, it's hard to tell where life ends and school begins.