Thankful day 10

Today I am thankful for music. I especially like that my phone plays music, LOUD lol, and MP3s like talks from our church's General Conference. I don't have headphones and I don't think there's a jack on my phone... so everyone gets to hear my music. I have kids' songs, church music, country music, and lots of other stuff on there and sometimes I just put it on shuffle and take it as it comes. My kids and I like the surprise of what comes next.

I grew up with music. We sang songs together growing up. My mom always said she couldn't sing but I am thankful she DID and does. I remember her singing me to sleep. I remember her crying as she sang hymns in church. I remember her singing Primary songs with us.
I remember Dad kind of singing. He would say he had the hymnbook memorized and didn't need it at church. I remember being little and watching to catch him miss a word... I don't remember if he did or not. We used to listen to oldies 8 tracks on road trips. I still would love to have copies of all those songs. It would be fun if it was in the same order as on those 8 tracks, because I used to remember what song came next as a kid. They were 8 track tapes recorded from Dad and Mom's records from growing up.

I used to listen to songs in Dad's garage when I went to go watch him work. He listened to country music and would tell me about the singers and what was going on in the music world.

I grew up singing in school choirs, at least until orchestra took more of my time. I learned to play the recorder at one point. I played violin in elementary school and loved being part of a group to make music. Mom would come to every concert. In junior high I switched to the viola, though still keeping up with the violin. I preferred the lower, richer tones of the viola even though my husband claims they're just there for the off beat. Yes, there are many viola jokes. I had the opportunity to play the viola in church a few years ago in a viola duet with a very talented player. My husband promised to get me a viola when we got engaged... still hasn't but he HAS given me 9 kids, the viola will come later I guess. I played viola in junior high and high school though I did stop high school orchestra to be more involved in some other activities at school and prepartions for college. My experiences with orchestras help me share with my kids the joys of classical music as well as musicals. "The Pit" at our high school musicals were some fun memories.

I always enjoyed singing in church choirs and small groups. I am NOT a soloist.

Now we sing as a family. Mostly for family home evening, we also sing other songs including songs with our movies and songs from "They Might Be Giants" and Weird Al Yankovic. The older kids have MP3 players and it's neat to see what choices they make for songs to put on there.

The kids notice the soundtracks of movies and music playing in the car and at different locations. They discuss the instruments played and instruments they would like to play. We are working on getting our kids in piano lessons, maybe trading with another homeschool mom for basic violin lessons.

Music can lift our spirits, can teach us, can bring enjoyment as well as learning. I love music.