A Little Bit of Music Ed

Our homeschool group was able to go down to Boston last Wednesday morning for a Boston Symphony Orchestra concert for kids. What a special treat! Marshall and Shaylen love listening to classical music. They've attended many music recitals, but only one orchestra concert. It was organized by a gentleman in our church who teaches middle school music. He takes a fairly large group (this year was 117, I think) from his schools and he invited our HBC homeschoolers to join in.

We try to expose Marshall and Shaylen to classical music often. It seems like classical music is constantly playing in our house or in the car. I am trying to teach them a silly game Taigen and I play. The game has no name (so if you have an idea of what to call it, let me know). We occasionally try to decipher what piece is playing on the radio, who composed it, and what musical period it is from. It poses a challenge but it's great fun! I am no master at it, but it makes me use my Music Education degree. When I play it with the twins, I usually make sure it's a piece they know and typically only ask them, "Who wrote this piece?" It's usually something they've learned from one of their Classical Kids CDs. What's funny, they usually guess it correctly. Or maybe, I'll know something is by Vivaldi (or whoever), but not necessarily a piece they're familiar with. Using the stylistic similaries, I know that they have the ability to decipher it. So...I'll ask. Sometimes they will say, "Well...it sounds like something Vivaldi would write." Now that's an educated guess!

All but one of the pieces that were played on Wednesday morning were ones that the twins had heard and were fairly familiar with. The funny thing is, the one piece that the majority of the kids in attendance knew (the theme from Star Wars) was the one that my kids had no clue on. Guess it all depends on what you're exposed to, huh? I guess I had better pull out my Boston Pops cds more often, eh?

After the concert we gathered into one of the many halls and one of the double bass players came in to tell us more about his instrument and a little more about himself. There was a time for Q&A that was really neat too. We loved it!

We had a wonderful time (with amazing seats, I might add) and would definitely do it again. Thank you Mr. Bergeron for organizing a wonderful day.
 

Note: Yes, I DID drive in Boston. Can you believe it? I might add though, that I got to follow friends AND had a GPS. Otherwise I would've stayed at home!