Silver Case

Ling has been debating about renovating her childhood piano and bringing it to our house.  It’s specifically built for tropical atmosphere (high heat, high humidity, and bugs).  I think it’s degraded regardless and might need some repairs.

Anyway, it made me think about what would be a good instrument to provide for Luke.

My theory is that I should find an instrument which you can almost immediately start making in-key music with.  Having to lay down a heavy base of memorizing scales and finger patterns in order to play in-key and make tonal music is too daunting.  (At least it was for me)  Why can’t the instrument, as a default, play in some sort of key?  I think it would be much more compelling to learn an instrument if you can actually quickly create some nice sounds from it, rather than having this huge investment before you stop sounding like shit. If the music bug bites, then you can invest the effort in the hard work of proper musicianship.

Problem is, I have no idea what instrument fits that bill.  (Mom will probably suggest an auto-zither; Megan will suggest the Pan-flute)  Guitars are too hard for a tiny little man’s hands.  I was thinking maybe it would be some sort of simplified keyboard.  But I have not got any clever ideas. When I look online, all I see is people trying to shoe-horn little kids into playing violin from young. Zzzzz.

Any ideas?

(As I sit here typing, I’m listening to Modern Jazz Quartet — it’s suprising how cool a Xylophone can sound)

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 22nd, 2008 at 11:21 am and is filed under Luke Slater.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.