Music

http://www.josephinewall.co.uk/flute.html

Oh the joy of music

To play to sing to listen to watch

To play a freshly serviced flute

It’s like playing a new instrument

It’s fun to hit the high notes and not have to push as hard

It’s so satisfying to play and be so immersed in the music and suddenly a whole hour has passed

Sometimes the notes elude you and jump about the page and make no sense

Other times it’s like, well, music 

And black notes and lines become melodies 

And gloriousness

To connect with Bach

Who lived over two hundred years ago 

Whole lifetimes and continents away

And yet here I am

This girl in Sydney, Australia playing Bach! Playing Chaminade and French Romance melodies and twentieth century abstractions and studies and scales

How incredible that I should be here

In this time and space

Playing music written hundreds of years ago!

Sharing music with children

Spreading musical love across generations

My grandmother and my mother gave it to me 

Remember sitting in the lounge room watching The Pajama Game with Abuela and she knew all the words. She sat there singing,

I’m not at all in love!

And you looked at her in wonder! She knows all the words!!! 

And now I pass it on to children through teaching

Kids this is music and it is the best thing since sliced bread

Sharing knowledge of melodies and dynamics and inspiring people to dance and sing and act

Today I found myself telling fifty children that performing is the best thing ever

And I meant it

How exciting how thrilling how joyous

The exhausting heartbreaking wonderful thrill of it

Music! As Jonathan Larson wrote:  “food of love, emotion, mathematics, isolation, rhythm, feeling, power, harmony, and heavy competition!!!!”

I’ve done my practise for the day

The girl next door is playing her violin

Houses apart, worlds apart, connected by music

sand art mandala from Lanzarote