It didn't totally suck. Sitting in a suburban Baptist church for an hour and a half listening to 43 kids pick out something on the piano and bang the tamborine is not necessarily the way I want to spend a Saturday afternoon - especially when there is college football to watch and forget about two minutes later. I hope the parents whose kids just don't have the mojo know it. Music is a great learning experience which I would never dissuade the most tone deaf from getting into but, man oh man, there are those that have it and those that do not - regardless of the number of years of training. The jury may be out on our's still but she's having fun and if she's not Sarah McLaughlin one day perhaps she'll be Ethyl Merman - "wouldja sing "Oklahoma" for your old man one more time, kiddo?" Fortunately, I am not in charge of these things so everyone gets a warm fuzzy from the whole event. And it is surpisingly quite nice to hear 5 kids out of 43 pick out the tune to Hockey Night in Canada as their favourite winter tune.
Canada's Favorite Blog
Almost Famous
Articles
- Articles for the sister station, A Good Beer Blog.
- Pick any day's tunes as heard on CBC Ottawa's All in a Day hosted by my personal emailing buddy, Brent Bambury. You won't find a better music selection on radio anywhere - certainly not on the deeply dowdy CBC.
- Another plume catches my eye.
- Stuff less serious than Stuff.
- From Jan to March 2006, I tried a group humour blog with others on the subject of Canadian politics. It did not last but the posts were worth keeping. #16 was banned. There were no comments. It was at www.shadowcabinet.ca.
- Some writings and other junk of little real interest unless you like law or are a Crow.
A display of hideous graphics focused on the goal of figuring out where the smokestack I can see to the south is sitting.
Comments
Rob Paterson - December 7, 2003 8:15 AM
A big difference that I note betwen the England that I grew up in and here is that when we put on a concert in the UK - you were good or you did not participate. My choir was good enough to sing at the local cathedral. Picture Rob in a red cassock and a white ruffle collar and white surplice!!! Cute. My point is that we were expected to be good and we had tough material and were well taught. Is it a matter of expectations? I dread going to these types of things here where the material is easy, badly done with no effort put into it. My school only had 70 boys so the issue was not size of pool but how seriously we took music. The benefit is a sense of achievment. What is taught when all you have to do is to drone away?
Alan - December 7, 2003 9:01 AM
This course is actually very good, very structured with set goals but there is little pressure in the sense I know you are talking about. The course of called Music for Young Children which is franchised across Canada. $14 bucks a week = two pints with tip. I can live with that.<p>The person behind it all is my junior choir leader form Kingston United days in the early '70's, Frances Balodis now Frances Balodis Ltd. I am all for anyone, tone deaf or not, belting it out and banging the drum - just taking the course or being in any group activity in itself is a good thing. But being in the class does not give you talent and that's the diff. There were a few kids who really were musical, could string notes together whether it was a teen playing a complex piece or a five year old plunking out "Mary Had a Little Lamb."