"Those are musics, they sound like this…."

She decided to make a camera the other day.  She harvested the Discovery Kids Tornado box, chopped and sawed, taped and glued, and ended up with a box that looks like the camera that Shawn (of the Shawn the Sheep) uses (90’s style video).  She then decided to mount it, offering the explanation that she was about to film a movie.  Then, after a few minutes of too much quiet upstairs, we heard her traipsing down the stairs and she emerged holding her violin, her mini guitar, her ukulele, my piccolo, her little Yamaha keyboard, and Russ’s bag pipe chanter.  All at once.When asked what all the instruments were for, after she plopped them on the couch, she stated she was going to make a movie (duh).  When neither he nor I said anything, she declared, “It needs music, of course!”.  Why, yes, yes it does.  And she designated each of us to our instruments for proper contribution. The only instrument she didn’t bring was a tambourine or hand drum… I guess she figured we could do without or use hands and laps.

We disassembled for a few while she set about with a paper and crayon.  I returned to hanging sheet rock and Russ likely was in his office.  Within about ten minutes, I was called to.  She presented me with the paper of notes/music, along with instruction.

“These are the high notes, these are the low ones, and these here, they’re somewhere in the middle and for the keyboard.  See, the little tails make them low because the musics are under them and can’t go too high. Definitely not squeaky.  Those, there, that’s the piccolo’s stuff.   – Eh, now I don’t think I can do that piccolo much but I will try.  I CAN make noise with it and well, yep.  You (mom) do the guitar.”

I waited…. she walked off, after something, but not before taping the sheet music to the wall above the instruments so we could all see and use it.

Waiting and watching, knowing she has more to construct/devise, etc, has become the norm.

Then, when she didn’t resurface, Russ and I began working on the house again until we heard a strange sound.  He listened for a moment until recognition rang (I couldn’t hear it from my position at the back of the house).  Yet, the moment I saw the smile on his face, and heard even the slightest bit of the sound, I too knew its origin.  Lily had picked up her violin and was trying to bow it, but the bow was too slack and the strings untuned, so it was rather more like a dying-in-agony cat than a violin.

After a few minutes of instruction and tuning tiny 1/16 size pegs, and pretending to think I’d keep the strings in tune with each other, I handed the violin back to her and she had at it.  She has fairly decent control, and with a little reminding to not mute with her left hand, she succeeded at producing music instead of agony.

I don’t know where she learned anything about writing/drawing sheet music, but I suppose it’s been in there somewhere during the last 5 years.  Her designation of different pitches and pitch category, especially assigned to a specific instrument was something that really excited me however, as this isn’t a development/understanding we’ve seen before now (she divulges in her own time, so it’s always interesting to see how it comes flowing out – most often like an erupting volcano).