Scenarios
All the following ‘hoodwinks’ must be carried out gently and patiently. As the old Taoist saying put it, “If you don’t press down on them they won’t weary of the burden”.
- Parents begin playing music on Saturday morning. They invite their young children to join in, but the children show no interest. Parents then explain, “Family music is a way to make our family stronger, just as eating right and a good night’s sleep makes a family stronger. So, all you need to do is just be present while we play and you can join if you ever want to”. This can take a few years as the child ‘tests’ the commitment of the parents, i.e., is it real or just another ‘good idea’?
- Parent asks, “If you could ‘magically’ play any instrument without lessons or anything, what would it be”? Child replies, “Maybe a ______”. Parent gets an inexpensive one a few months later after that conversation has been forgotten. The parent stumbles around and learns just enough to be ‘bad’ at it, then asks for the child’s help. If the child declines to help, you leave the instrument out where the child can start doodling around with it (eventually). After awhile (perhaps a year or so) when the child does something ‘mentionable’, parent asks child, “Hey, how did you do that? Show me.”
- Parents play music but have a hard time with rhythm, harmony, words, melody, picking, whatever, and asks the child for help. They ask the children to listen and see if they hear what’s ‘wrong’, even if nothing is all that wrong. Thinking something is wrong, the children may say, “__________is wrong”. Parent acknowledges the critique and asks what the children would do. Hopefully the children try something. The parent listens and can respond with “That’s a new (or interesting, or funny, or cool, or strong) way of doing it”.
Or, for example, say rhythm is a problem. Parent asks the child to tap him/her on the shoulder with a spoon (for a few minutes now and then) on the beat to help keep parent on the beat. Whatever your situation, all responses should avoid nailing down the ‘right way’ and leave the adventure of discovery open!
- Parent offers to show the children a few easy chords. The children say they already ‘know’ a few chords and want to show the parent. Parent says, “Great!” and learns the children’s version, even if it’s wrong. After strumming it, the parent asks, “How does that sound?”, and nothing more. Any response from the children, “good” or “bad”, is fine. The main goal is to elicit interaction and interdependence. Learning the/a ‘correct way’ is not the goal; rather, the goal is to engage in a process of interconnection; that is where the joy lies.
Note: While more rare, this process can go the other way too, from child to parent. Neat!
How We Did It
- I’ve already briefly described what my wife’s and my musical background was when we started our family on the About Us page. When Luke was a toddler before two we set out various music-makers around the house: simple electric keyboard, an open tuned baritone ukulele, recorder, slide whistle, drum, kazoo, chimes, xylophone, and so on. I mean if it made sound, we had it around.
- Later on, when Luke and Kyle were around eight and five respectively, we set aside Saturday morning as our family music time. My mother came over and together with Leslie and myself we played the old folk songs as best we could. The modest resistance the boys had was easily neutralized by simply explaining to them that this music time was a ‘family duty’, like washing the dishes and taking a bath.
We made no demands on them, other than just being present. As I recall, it took Luke several years for him to discover that singing was fun. It took Kyle twice that time. Everyone is different! Anyway, as the months and years passed, they began joining in and actually enjoying the musical ‘duty’. It became a tradition, like a daily Thanksgiving.
A few years later we went to the local music store to see what stringed instruments the boys might like. Luke picked a banjo and Kyle went with a mandolin which fit his small seven year old hands. Wow, what cacophony! I had to shove some towels into the pot of Luke’s banjo until he developed a lighter touch. We showed Kyle a few chords and with a capo he could strum in any key.
One morning about a year later I was wonderfully stunned when Kyle picked Deep River Blues on his mandolin. None of us had ever heard him attempt picking any melody heretofore. And, we would have known for we are always together. We lived in an 800 square foot space, did home schooling, and all slept in the same bedroom. I suppose you could say our family life was old fashioned, not unlike that of a pioneer family out on the prairie with a one room cabin.
- One day we happened to see a poster advertising a ‘Bluegrass and Old Time Music Festival’. We knew instantly that was something we had to check out, so we went. Wow! It was like being struck by lightning. All those friendly people, open air, old folks and young folks, and music done the way we felt right then we’d like to do it.
- We found out where some jams were and also attended some more festivals. Before long I became amazed by how naturally and effortlessly the kids were learning to really play music, unlike the rote-like, note reading, page turning process that Leslie and I knew as music. I had to discover how those kids did it, and without a teacher to boot. It appeared, for one thing, that they were simply observing how the ‘old timers’ played, and from that intuitively knew what to do.
- Well, through a back and forth process between Luke and myself (that continues to this day), I figured out how the kids ‘learned’ to play music by ear without instruction. Actually, ‘we’ figured out how, for though Luke could ‘do it’ he didn’t ‘know’ what he was doing. Kyle still doesn’t ‘know’… he just does it.
- Now, all of us can play all the instruments. Of course only Luke and Kyle can play them all with a beautiful ease. For our part, Leslie and I, now know what to do. Gone are the dreary days of ‘rote’ note/TAB reading, page turning music. For folks like us, starting music later in life, singing fluently is a sure bet. Playing instrumental breaks as fluently is more problematic, and may depend a lot on innate talent. Even so, we can often find the ‘groove’ once we get warmed up and let go.
- We pass on, through our book and CD’s, what we have learned. We hope this might serve as a roadmap for anyone interested in making music a foundation of their life, and especially for any families who want to have this music become their family tradition.
