hide-n-(sensory)-seeking

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that I had started teaching private music lessons again . This has proven to be interesting and fun in many ways. Some I expected. I always enjoy working with my students, seeing them go from little to no knowledge of an instrument to learning basic rhythms in just a few short weeks! Seeing the light bulbs go on as they recognize things, or something suddenly makes sense.  Some ways, have surprised me. Like teaching in the age of mobile technology. At a lesson with one student, she brought her iPad so I could explain how to use the metronome app that I had recommended she download. I did and then we practiced with it together several times.  She seemed more relaxed when we played her exercises together I noticed. So I asked her if she knew how to record sound only on her iPad (which, of course she did, she's nearly twelve after all). And I offered to record myself playing the exercises, so she could listen and play with them...

This is one of the coolest things I have ever seen or heard! A little  ice  for some summer relief!

This is my first letter to Kit. I started my journal of letters to her a little later than with the other kids. For a long time I couldn't quite figure out why. I'd had the journal since before she was born, but I just couldn't seem to get started. And then finally one day it hit me. Hers is no ordinary letter. Hers is music. Hers is a poem. And then I could write, for then I knew how. And still today, as true as then, she is words in motion, lyrical, and her own steady beat. *** April 2, 2012 You are my music baby. Through the music of love you came to us, Overpowering even nature itself. As my belly swelled, it was you who filled it,  with sounds, notes, beats. A whooshing, tiny heartbeat, Steady, unyielding, the baseline. Your musical score etched deep in each cell, playing out the symphony of your birth. Delicate ears heard the chorus of family. High notes, low notes. Some of those phrases so soft and tender. Others fast,...