Music is a language we share in my house. My kids mostly listen to vastly different music than I do, but that doesn't ever stop us from having a random dance party in the kitchen when something randomly plays, and demands us to play, too. It's The Go Go's, or Taylor Swift, or even Emenim. We've sung along in the car together to Imogen Heap, and U2, and Jack Johnson, and Coldplay. The other day my daughter shared a song with me, and I followed it up with a song new to her. I raised a boy who played the trumpet in band, and the younger two want drums. Give us things to bang on loudly, they ask. And I'm kind of excited about that.
No, don't get me wrong; I'm absolutely not looking forward to those first painful few months where it all always sounds like an endless river of noise made specifically to drown out every last bit of sanity in my brain that I will cling to in hopes of not tossing those drums onto the bonfire in the back yard one sunny afternoon. I'm not looking forward at all to the eventual competition it will surely turn into; who can drive mom crazy first; best; longest without being threatened with bodily harm. And then, the competition will turn against each other--who's playing better. Because their first critics are always going to be each other. And they spare no criticism, as siblings do, I guess.
What I am looking forward to, though, is seeing the language of music expanded in our home. To see them pick up an entirely different level of sophistication in the pronunciation of this thing that moves our hearts, our feet, our mouths. To share the rhythm of their learning and to see the doors in their lives opening, music leading the way. I don't expect them to be musicians, but to appreciate yet another universal language, like math, that connects their lives to the rest of the giant world they have yet to discover.
Sorry, neighbors.
(We're also planning on getting a piano.)
;)
