<p>D sang (la la) on the changing table at 9 months - the Barney Song/Rain Rain Go Away . Who said TV wasn’t beneficial?! 
I’d like to thank Wee Sing, Baby Songs, Stevie Wonder, Mary Poppins, Natalie Cole, and Fraulein Maria for helping to create my music obsessed D! Going to college as a VP major in the fall!</p>
<p>Speaking of Baby Songs, this winter break my kids and I google Hap Palmer’s website and his YouTube channel to re-watch the many Baby Songs and Kids Songs videos that were such an important part of their childhood. I had thought that these little pieces were lost to us, except in memory, locked away on inaccessible, aging VHS tapes, so it was a delight to see them on his website. After their Baby Songs years, my kids went to to study music fairly seriously, and into creative careers. They were discussing how the songs with their interesting, rather complex fabric and harmonies influenced their very early development. There was a lot of other music in our house (and the younger ones were treated to heavy doses of Suzuki tapes) but Baby Songs, with their low-budget but imaginative videos were a favorite because they dealt with real issues in a non-sentimental, respectful, and highly musical format. Pretty good for a bunch of tapes I picked up at the supermarket for $2.99.</p>
<p>My son raced BMX bicycles from 5 until 10. He started on the violin at 9 as part of his school starting an orchestra program. He composed his first piece “Adagio” during one of his summers at Interlochen. Things didn’t really take off composition-wise until he started high school. I still have Adagio. I should frame it I guess.</p>
<p>ha ha - I know! I found “My Mommy Comes Back” a couple of weeks ago on youtube and now it is stuck in my head (again) ! :)</p>
<p>Rosie26 – Oh no, now it’s stuck in my head!</p>
<p>The song “Mommy Comes Back” is my youngest D’s nightmare song. We used to play her that cassette when she was less than a year old–until we realized that she would always start heaving crying whenever that song came on.</p>
<p>It wasn’t the tune that was a problem–it was the audacity that someone would try to make a happy song out of a mother leaving. When her verbal skills improved by age 2 1/2 or so, she was able to tell us quite clearly that she found the song horrible and that they were trying to trick little kids.</p>
<p>I guess we should have known my son was headed for technical direction when he spent his early childhood ordering everyone else around.</p>
<p>We always liked Hap Palmer (Babysongs ) until I actually left my 2 and 1/2 year old at school ,.while picking up a kindergartner and showing off my newborn girl ,who started to cry ,as she was hungry .When I got home ,the principal called and asked if all children were present and accounted for . I said yes ,and she claimed she had one in her office ! After that we always sang " My mommy comes back …she never would forget me except once ! We had a housekeeper ,which explains how I wasn’t used to having him with me all the time . He is 22 ,and still talks about this ! That was when I knew 4 kids was enough for me !</p>
<p>When my son was in the first grade he was taking karate lessons, his public school started up an after school program that offered piano classes as an option, he wanted to start going to the public school after school program but the piano lessons conflicted with his karate lessons and he decided that he didn’t want to switch from his private after school daycare to the public one.</p>
<p>A year or two later we were visiting his grandmother at Christmas time, he started pounding the keys on her piano, she yelled at him to stop. It’s been at least ten year ago, and he has still never spoken to her. Although my wife claims her mother can play piano, I don’t believe I have ever heard that piano played.</p>
<p>A movie exposed him to the Louis Armstrong version of “What a Wonderful World”, and that song became his favorite for a while. I thought that it was very odd that this was his favorite song, but looking back I think maybe it was foretelling the future (Louis Armstrong was as equally famous as a trumpet player as he was a singer). </p>
<p>Then 5th grade rolls around and towards the end of it he made this announcement that he is going to play violin in the middle school orchestra. My wife wanted to talk him into doing band instead of orchestra since she and I both did public school band, but he was set on orchestra and I didn’t want to make him feel that he was “forced” to do any activity so we just let him be. </p>
<p>After the summer break, the second day of school he arrived home with that violin, a rental that he went and got with his other grandmother, I was ready to give him this big speech about how it costs so much and that it wasn’t a toy and that he had to be very careful with it as it is fragile, etc. But there was no need. I think he innately understood that. It was amazing to see him so carefully open the case for the first time and gently pick the instrument and bow up.</p>
<p>He sat first chair his entire first year in orchestra class, and his group, one of the few true beginner only groups in our area received straight superiors by all judges at our area concert festival and he personally received a superior at solo and ensemble.</p>
<p>The second year the school hires a different instructor. She had no experience in playing or teaching orchestra, and was much more interested in her daily personal drama than she was in teaching music or anything else. There were days that my son never even took his instrument out of it’s case and the teacher literally spent the entire period chatting on her cell phone. After two years of having a horrible teacher, he had pretty much lost interest in music and had decided that he was going to drop out of orchestra. </p>
<p>Then he was invited to go with the 8th grade band to hold up a banner for the parade/concert competition that they were going to in Florida. The band won first place in the middle school division, and he was all about band after that. He immediately started taking private trumpet lessons to get caught up, and by the end of his first marching season he had pretty much caught up with the other trumpet players who had nearly 3 years experience on him. His second year he played second trumpet parts and made region band, his third year he was playing first trumpet, made region, got a call back for Allstate, and was an alternate for a G-8 drumcorp. His senior year he was section leader, finally made Allstate, and made first chair in the USC (South Carolina) band clinic, and was first trumpet with a DCI finalist drumcorp. It was 4 years of catching up, but in the end he went far beyond just catching up.</p>
<p>So when did I first realize that his interest in music was serious? I was taking him to school one day in the 10th grade and I just casually asked him what he wanted to do after he graduated. He didn’t respond, which didn’t surprise me any because he was always in a bad mood on the way to school. I said “you seem to like music, maybe you would want to do something with that”. His eyes immediately lit-up and all his normal early morning glumness went away. He just said “ya, I was thinking about that”. I was honestly shocked. I never thought of him as being a musician before.</p>
<p>There were warning signs ever since the first grade, but I just didn’t pick up on it. One of my biggest regrets in life is that I didn’t get him in that first grade piano class.</p>
<p>I have this on video somewhere. S1 is around 2 years old and S2 is about 6 months old. We are playing ‘parade’ walking throughout our house with a long hallway with S1 beating a toy drum and me marching and holding S2 so S2 could feel that he was ‘playing’ and marching’ along also. I had the video camera in my other hand. So we are having this parade and all of a sudden S1 exclaims ’ Wait mom!’ and runs into the living room where the toy box was, digs through the box, pulls out the toy trumpet and starts blowing into it - we continued the parade with a trumpet player and S2 became the drummer. So you guessed it - today S1 is a trumpet player and S2 is a drummer (amongst their many other instruments)! </p>
<p>Thanks for bumping this thread so I could remember/share that fun moment in time.</p>
<p>My son “drummed” on everything. For his 5th birthday we gave him a drum pad, sticks and promises of lessons, which he began at age 6. We never told him to practice. Never. He got a snare drum at age 7, and his first “set” at age 9-ish. He played in the school band, and joined our local youth symphony in 6th grade. Was at their highest levels (orchestra and bands) in 7th grade, fell in love with jazz in 8th grade and began playing with local youth jazz bands…and on and on. So I guess we “saw” it when he was a toddler and he took it from there. We go see his junior recital at Oberlin next weekend!!!</p>
<p>By contrast, his younger bro is a gifted trumpet player, but doesn’t love it. Have nagged him to practice–but he’s fallen in love with electronic music (oldest bro is a software programmer), so he’s combining both brothers’ loves–computers and music. You never know, right? We feel very lucky that they’ve had both the opportunity to be exposed to all these things, and that they’ve found passions. Who knows where it will go, but one of them is employed!!!</p>
<p>Our S’s 6th grade music teacher called and said she thought he had what it took to participate with the Cincinnati Boy Choir; where he later auditioned and was then quickly accepted. </p>
<p>That particular Choir is three-tiered…the Training Choir (for the youngest members), the Resident Choir (the middle level), and the Tour Choir (for the best and most experienced)…and he was initially assigned to the Resident Group. </p>
<p>However, he was quickly elevated to the Tour Choir after less than a school semester; and that represented the earliest stages of what we hope, at some point in the future, will manifest itself in a fulfilling (and with luck, successful) career as an operatic Tenor.</p>
<p>Now that my baby is gone (freshman year at UNT) I have time to reminisce!</p>
<p>It was 18 months old at a Parent & Me class. We were sitting around in circle time with other Moms & their toddlers. The song was “Wheels on the Bus” and son sang the words to all the verses plus did all the appropriate hand gestures, for once I was the subject of envious Mom glances, lol, and it is a feeling I don’t relish!</p>
<p>Other times were his coolness under pressure when at piano competitions for our local American Music Guild. I remember one piece where he started out with his hands in the wrong position and made a quick correction after the first measure. It was no big deal to him, he didn’t even mention it afterward.</p>
<p>I believe it takes a lot of self-confidence (whether warranted or not!) to be a music performer and son has consistently shown that. One memorable time was when he had his first jazz solo in 7th grade jazz band. He came in too early, it was noticble because he repeated the refrain. The band director afterward asked him “Did I cue you?” and son said “No, you forgot to”, band director walks away scratching his head. Fortunately son got better at knowing when to come in.</p>
<p>S was 4 years old, and we had just watched Star Wars with him a few weeks previously. One afternoon his dad put on the Star Wars soundtrack album, and S, after listening carefully for a bit, started identifying the musical themes (“That’s Luke’s music! That’s Darth Vader’s music!”). I didn’t quite know what, but I knew something special was going on, so I got him into some Orff classes right away. </p>
<p>Then in 2nd grade he started piano, and was playing something (possibly Linus & Lucy"s theme, or maybe the Pink Panther, I forget exactly) and his piano teacher remarked that he seemed to intuitively understand how to “swing” a tune. He’s been into jazz ever since. :)</p>
<p>My daughter is just in 8th grade, but I knew she would be in music from the time she started piano at five. She just loved playing, and was writing short pieces by the time she was six. She was the only 6th grader chosen for our area’s middle school honors jazz band. It blows me away that she can improvise and write music, because I was classically-trained and needed every note in front of me!</p>
<p>Here’s a story for you…son picked up trombone in 6th grade, parents with zero musical background. Kicked out of jazz band in middle school…was about to quit band his first year of high school. Four years later, he’s All-State and accepted to amazing programs like Florida State as a music major. The moral of my story - you never damn know!</p>
<p>I was in Grad school and we had to write a paper on something, anything, or maybe it was someone (it’s been so long I can barely remember!) that we observed for a certain amount of time without interruption. I picked up my 18 month old and set her in the middle of our large living room with nothing around her. She sat quietly and then crawled over to her toys. She took out the combination xylophone/piano little toy and played all of these interesting combinations and chords, concentrating so hard for so long. I was amazed. So my paper became “Reflections on a Musical Baby”. I need to find that paper!</p>
<p>When she was in 3rd grade it was guitar and she was so intense she learned pages ahead, the teacher couldn’t keep up with her.</p>
<p>In 4th she heard an oboe concerto on YouTube and said “Thats the one for me.” Usually at her school, you couldn’t start oboe until 2 years after playing another instrument. The teacher said she could try. Within two months we were called in and told we should get a private teacher, and her school teacher had a recommendation for a teacher that only took 4-6 students, who was retired from a fantastic orchestra, and was the perfect match personality wise. Ahh, that Fox 330 oboe took us everywhere!</p>
<p>My son plays bass trombone, but when auditioning at S. Carolina, the music school dean (funny, great guy), made a statement that if your kid can play Oboe decently, they could pretty much gaurantee themselves a decent music scholarship to most major colleges in the U.S.</p>
<p>I guess my son is a party of one on here, he didn’t pick up the instrument until 6th grade, natural talent and hard work took him where he wanted to go - but it was not a baby!</p>
<p>…Babies can be musical? I had no idea…</p>
<p>Even before she could walk our D would play the preset songs on her toy keyboard for hours and just rock back and forth. Then one day when she was about two I was driving her somewhere and “God Only Knows” by the Beach Boys came on the radio and we listened to it. About ten minutes later she sings back ( no words yet ) the melody of the entire verse, which is pretty complicated. It was so weird I had to pull the car over and just look at her. I do music for a living but I’ve never heard anything so strange. She’s a violist now.</p>