On a lighter note

They say that music soothes the savage beast. I haven’t really looked into it too much, but I remember with such fondness the empty feeling inside me it would feel whenever I was able to participate in music lessons as a young child. Not that we used to do too much at that stage, although I must say, this was the time when there was an actual music session once a week, which was much more than kids get to do nowadays. The in class sessions were the good old class singalongs, and all the kids would get a songbook, a paperback songbook that we could take home and practice at home if we desired. I loved it! I would spend many afternoons chilling out in the back yard learning the words and singing whatever song I would happen to be infatuated at the time. Actually one of my favorites was “My Highland Goat”

Sorry guys, according to You tube, it’s quite obscure, but you can see from the clip the spirit in which that song is sung in..

Additionally, as I found that our weekly sing along lessons didn’t do enough for me, I was happy to join our school choir, and I used to love squawking out a tune on my good old recorder. When I got into high school, I was quite thrilled at the range of instruments in our music class.

Now, as I had not hit the social skills jackpot and being an awkward child who just did not make the clicks, I would borrow whatever instrument I fell in love with in music class (and yes I did fall in love with them) and in my lunch hour, see what I could learn on that instrument, experimenting until eventually sticking with the saxophone. I found that the only instrument I could not get a sound out of was a flute, and my hands were too small for the guitar. Our music teacher was happy to let me borrow an instrument to take home to practice on where I would happily practice in the back shed, and I also participated in the High School Choir. Why am I not so involved in music? Well, I just did not have that confidence to follow through when I looked around and saw other kids my age who had private music lessons and had stronger voices, with a better range than me, and I chickened out. No one challenged me on this choice when I did so when I left school, that’s where my involvement with music ended.

My daughter has herself become involved with the school choir, although she is not as keen on music as Magpie is, as he exhibits that fascination with music that is rewarding. He will sit in the car, listening to the radio, and will comment on the rhythm, the tone, how the song is structured the beat..he listens to everything that is involved in the song, and although my daughter loves to sing along to a great song, is happy to just sing along, then move on to whatever she and her peers have on their mind!

Magpie is quite a talkative lad, he actually never shuts up, just like an incessantly chattering Magpie. Unfortunately, this means that his classmates are not quite so patient with him and he finds it hard to make friends. He also has quite an active mind, and at times gets anxious about certain things, which finds him getting placed in our school organised, music therapy. This program has been designed for children who may have behavioural issues where it would benefit for them to do something apart from the classroom, once a week, and they get to perform in front of the assembly occasionally.

Toby also gets to participate in music therapy, as part of his schedule in his class, as he is in a special needs classroom, and music therapy is on the program.  For the sake of encouraging involvement, they keep it simple where the kids sing along to the music teacher and his assistant’s lead, and they get to keep the beat with canasta,a tambourine or a drum. Actually his music therapy teacher mentioned that our Chook whisperer was doing quite well int music therapy, we may well have a little Drummer Boy on our hands soon:

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So imagine my pride as the music therapy teacher came up to us, to  look at our puppy, I brought into the school to show, this teacher was full of praise for Magpie’s efforts in Music therapy and how well he’s doing. This comes as no surprise to me, as he always looks forward to music therapy, and generally comes home quite happy and more settled on those days he has music therapy. He has always had an excellent singing voice, too, would hit the right pitch without any assistance.  Maybe Magpie should get a ukulele, they’re certainly less painful to listen to than a recorder.