Sunday, December 20, 2015

In music, as in life

There are a handful of things that Casey and I dearly hope to force upon our children as they pass through their childhoods.  (Did I say that?  I meant guide them to.  Gently guide.  Suggest, even.)

Music is definitely one of those things.

Music plays such an important role in our home, on par with other non-negotiables like cooking and wearing our pajamas too much.  I use music to signal transitions in our day; to start and end school time, to pump us up or help us calm down, and we nearly always have music playing in the background during central times when we're doing chores or eating meals.  My kids sing and dance... well, all the time, really. 

Casey and I met in our college marching band.  I was studying to be a music teacher, and music had permeated his young life as well. The idea that music is good for the brain and the soul is firmly entrenched in our ideology.

Well, if music be the food of love, we are going to feast in 2016! 

Because for Christmas, our little family came together and decided on one very important gift:


I feel like this warrants a great, big TA-DA!!!!

It's something we've been wanting to add to our family for a long time, and we're so excited that time is finally here.


It's an Everett spinet circa 1941-45, and to sweeten the pot, we came to it through a ministry that restores pianos to support their outreach efforts.  It felt very fortuitous, like things aligned at every step so that we could bring it home.

It is just beautiful.  


Beautiful, but not perfect.  For Casey and me, that only added to the appeal.

The black keys are all worn, some of them even showing the wood beneath, and the body has some scratching and dents.  It is an instrument that is full of life; that tells the story of the generations before us whose hands tenderly brought it to life.  It speaks of decades of chubby fingers that roughly plunked out off-key melodies for the first time, eventually being replaced by confident ones which could draw out harmonies with the skilled ease of a practiced hand.



And now, it's our turn.

Time for our people's little hands to learn and play and grow and make her sing.  To write a new chapter in her long story.



And we are so excited!

I know that the years ahead will bring more dissonance, mis-keys and re-starts than harmony, but, like so many things when you have little ones, it isn't about whether the music is always beautiful.  It's about equipping them with the tools, discipline, passion and know-how to make beautiful music when their time comes.

I can't wait to enjoy every step of that process.  

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