Music and Story

Joy has started “bowing” (which I totally did not know was a word) with the violin, i.e. using the bow on the strings instead of simply plucking them, and thus far, anyway, the screeching has been at a minimum. I am very thankful for this. She is also improvising at the piano again, which means I get to hear a lot of the same three notes played over and over while she tries to figure out the next one. I do my best to endure this with grace, but I confess to occasionally saying “OK THAT’S ENOUGH NEXT SONG PLEASE.” These are the times a larger apartment would be nice.

She plays almost every single day, and is at the point now where I rarely have to remind her to practice. She loves both violin and piano, and usually will ask to play my guitar (which is way too huge for her) after she’s done with her two instruments. She’s also told me she wishes she could take guitar lessons, but I told her we probably ought to stick with just two instruments for now.

She has such an instinctive rapport with music. She doesn’t love to read the way I did as a seven-year-old; she’ll happily pick up a book if I suggest it, but she doesn’t usually think to read for herself. I’ll admit that I was concerned by that until I saw how lost she will get in music, making up stories and playing an accompaniment to them on the piano, composing her own little operas without even knowing what she’s doing.

She does have a deep connection with and love for story, something Carl and I wanted so much to instill in both our girls. She just expresses it through music more than through the written word. And that is just fine. In fact, it is better than fine: it is a delight.

(I suspect Gracie will be more of a reader. She already tends to get lost in books, even without being able to understand the words. Once she gets it down – yeah, my hunch is that she’ll wander around with her nose buried in a book more often than not.)