<p>Although not musical per se, my horn player S is the only one of my kids who ever used a pacifier - and he used it till nearly age 4. We figure the horn is just an extension of his oral fixation, and better than cigarettes. Either that, or he was just working on his embouchure early. It sure doesn’t keep him quiet, though!</p>
<p>When D was 2 1/2 she was sitting in the grocery cart. She began to sing, on pitch as usual, and went through her whole repertoire; Eensy weensie spider, do re mi, twinkle twinkle little star… As she sang, a crowd gathered, and when she finished, she received a huge applause! Another favorite: at around age four, her version of do re mi included “FA, a long long way to…RU…N…” as she ran full speed from one end of the house to the other.</p>
<p>These are fun stories! Really nice to think about right now, as we had the joy of watching her senior recital this weekend. Best Mother’s Day ever!</p>
<p>My son and husband are both musicians and neither can resist the temptation to tell a joke. At S’s 2-year-old birthday party, H set him up for his first performance. S sang the ABC song perfectly in tune, but left out one letter. At the end of the song, H asked, "Hey, where’s the “P”? S answers, deadpan, “Running down my yeg.” He couldn’t say his L’s, but he got a good laugh!</p>
<p>Skie- Love it! Knowing the principals as I do, I can picture it very clearly. :-D</p>
<p>Rlm - I had the same reaction to yours! Appalachian Spring seems just right. xxx S</p>
<p>Thanks, everyone! I am really enjoying these! Dadofclard, quite a pistol you have there. But my favorite story so far is musicmom and “buba”. That is incredibly cute.</p>
<p>When my d was 6 I enrolled her in children’s church choir. I spent that weekly half hour at the grocery store. After about three months two mothers approached me in the church parking lot and asked me quite seriously, if I was giving my daughter voice lessons. The following week I sat in on the singing and I heard her sing and I knew. The following year she started piano and at 13 private voice.</p>
<p>Our S3 was 4 years old and Santa asked what he wanted for Christmas.
He replied- “a guitar, and not one of those stupid fisher price ones, a real guitar with real strings and frets.”
On Christmas day he was thrilled with his first fender strat (second hand- he was 4 after all) and absolutely astounded us by figuring out how to play the opening from Clapton’s “Wonderful tonight” on his own. Next was Hendrix “Voodoo Child” ha ha. We have many photos of him over the years sound asleep in his bed, guitar in hand.</p>
<p>Fender strat, ah yes. Good taste that 4 year old of yours!</p>
<p>We have a collection of Fender basses in our house to keep the ‘bubas’ company.</p>
<p>D1 loved to sing, and went around singing loudly, but without any sense of tune!<br>
But…when D2 came along, she sang on pitch from the start and used to sing rounds with me in the car at about 3 (Tom Chapin was our favorite then).
About the same time I had the piano tuner in, and D was hanging out with him while he tuned the piano. I went to the other room to keep working. Suddenly he came hurrying down the hall and said (excitedly) - “Do you KNOW what you have here?” I said something about her having a pretty voice, and he said “NO! Do you really understand?” Apparently she was helping him tune the piano by ear. At 3.</p>
<p>D had several entire musicals memorized by the age of 2, could sing the female lead correctly and on pitch and knew all of the lines as well. It really became difficult when she discovered that her dress-up box was a treasure trove of costumes and that she could clothe herself in the morning as the character of her choice and not answer to her own name! I could usually divine the “person of the day” by the hat she wore , but this was definitely the beginning of method acting by immersion!
To this day, she learns music and roles with astounding speed and has total recall if she’s heard/seen a piece performed, and, to paraphrase a line from this week’s “Glee”, “Like Tinkerbelle, she needs applause to live”!</p>
<p>I have no experience to contribute, but I really gotta post to say these anecdotes are so cute!
I’m glad some could tape the experiences as family treasure!</p>
<p>-While not musical myself, I LIKE music and I had music around for fun and general development purposes when my kids were tiny (close together in age)
-first one showed early talent and interest
–both have casual access to music while in preschool
-first one expressed about age 11 definitely wants to be a musician and only a musician
-both are increasingly involved with music (no, they don’t do the same thing though both are classical)
-first one gets really serious
-second one gets really serious<br>
-both are music majors
-boy, there’s been a lot of travel in our family for music…</p>
<p>Well, gee, not until junior year of high school. Not at all. Just to give someone hope if their kids didn’t show signs earlier!</p>
<p>My child said she had always heard music in her head and thought it was “normal.” Once she started writing it down, she became a composer, but the music was there all those years, silent to others and internal.</p>
<p>compmom - amazing how are kids have stuff brewing inside, isn’t it? I was telling my D about this thread, and she told me something I never knew. She used to hum to match the pitch of electric appliances (vacuum cleaner, blender, etc) and then drop it a half step because she liked the vibrations. Her favorite choral composer? Eric Whitacre.</p>
<p>I’ll bite. We first knew when our son could sing the “All Things Considered” theme before he could really talk. I just think he always was a musical soul. He was (and presumably is) always very quick to pick up a tune, and is highly sensitive to whether something is on or off key – like all good musicians it just drives him crazy if it is not on key. He also has a very wide spectrum in his hearing – we had a fascinating experience in Quebec City when we were at the hotel’s breakfast buffet, and he said “Can you hear that? It is very annoying” — We all said we could not hear a thing. It bothered him so much that we went to the staff, and wandered around until they determined that it was a piece of equipment that was making a very high sound. Somewhere around then, he wrote a piece for cello and piano set to the Edgar Allan poem, The Bells. It was pretty apparent there was a talent there that needed to be supported and nurtured. Fortunately it won out over his interest in juggling and circus arts…and now he is a voice major at Oberlin Conservatory and doing very well. He is very happy to be able to focus on things musical.</p>
<p>D was singing/ humming (in perfect pitch) Twinkle Twinkle at 15 months old. Pediatrician said he had never personally heard of a child doing that at so young an age. He said she must be really talented if that was so, but since she would not sing for him, I’m not sure he ever really believed me.</p>
<p>She is a vocal performance major today!</p>
<p>I discovered this thread today, and thought I’d give it a “bump” – is that the right term? – so more of you could have a smile today like I did!</p>
<p>When D3 was 8 months old we travelled back to the USA for a visit. While on a bus changing gates at the Detroit airport, she started singing the theme of Beethoven’s 9th “la la la” very loudly and in tune, every note. When she was done the entire bus clapped. She is the one preparing for music conservatory now.</p>
<p>Jazzpianomom1: I’m glad you did - what a lovely thread! Such nice memories and stories to sit with during this time of post-audition exhaustion. My son’s musical leanings were evident to all early although not really for performance-type behaviors. He was extremely sensitive to music/singing that was off-key (tough for me, since that’s basically how I sing!) and he was really drawn to rhythms - he would walk in rhythmical patterns, he’d beat out rhythms and he’d do odd little sounds, always in rhythm. He was also drawn to the piano early. He’s now a composer and plays piano and guitar.</p>