Snow Day and Music

Transferred from my other blog: The Adventures of Sisterhood. 
First published: 2-20-12 at 7:23 PM PDT

 

Getting hit with snowballs by daddy!

Last night, after Kylie's bath, mommy dressed her in a pink onesie with a snowman on it. While she and mommy were asleep, daddy and I watched nearly two inches of powdery white snow accumulate on our back porch. Now this isn't the midwest. We live in North Carolina. Before moving to North Carolina, we lived in Georgia. Kylie has never been further north than Washington, D.C., and never lived anywhere but the southeast. This isn't her first encounter with snow, but it's her first time being allowed out while it was there. We were home because today was President's Day; I didn't have school and Kylie's daycare was closed.

The baby has a thing for music. Bob Carlisle's Butterfly Kisses album can silence her on a fussy car trip. She'll shake and dance every time she hears some melody pop up. For several (too many) years, I took piano lessons. I still like to bang around on the keys once in a while, and more often than not, Kylie will come toddling in. She'd ask for permission to play by pointing up at the keys and then making this questioning sound. I usually bring her up onto my lap, but when I don't, she rarely fusses. She usually just ends up sitting in my little piano nook and playing with the old books and sheet music scattered on the floor.

Musically, her most recent discovery is glissandos (glissandi?). I personally despise the musical tool. It's overused in modern band music and sounds silly on the piano unless you use the pedal, which the music sometimes doesn't allow. My baby sister, however, is completely riveted by them. When my thumb starts a gliss, she'll stop smashing the keys and watch. Then she'll place her palms on the keys, fingers facing the higher notes, and brush them down the keyboard, as if doing her own. The keys are too heavy for her to be able to make sound in a gliss by herself. Also, they really hurt your fingers when you're little (at least they hurt mine, which is why I hated them at ages 9 and 10 and below). Naturally, she was unable to produce the gliding staircase sound of the gliss, but the fact that she understood the motions and enjoyed listening/trying was magnificent enough.

-Chichi