Thank Goodness For Muscle Memory

Fifteen years ago, I got my A.Mus.A - my Associate diploma in Music, Australia. It was a BIG deal to me and recently, I was reminded that an A.Mus.A is still a big deal. (Yay, I do have something worthwhile under my belt). Unfortunately, I don't feel at all like a musician. In fact, I get worried about admitting that I play the piano in case I'm asked to play something. EEK!

Its a horrible feeling. This used to be something I was good at. Playing sonatas by memory was an every day thing! Its easy to mentally categorize this as yet another part of my past (y'know, like work and anything engineering or marketing related). But, why be so lazy? This is something that I can work on from home, at a time that suits me.

So, I've started making time in my day for some piano practice. The aim is for short bursts of practice, focusing on short sections of whatever piece I have chosen. Small chunks - I'm no longer the student that had to put in the 2 hours every day.

The most surprising thing I have noticed is that even though some of my hand and finger muscles seem to have shrunk, muscle memory seems to have stuck around. I can't play any of the old pieces from memory but the strange thing is that I can still play them if I have the notes in front of me. I'm not exactly reading the notes because I tried sight reading new pieces of similar levels and I can't read fast enough. Through some of the faster passages, my fingers play automatically and as soon as I try to read the notes, things fall apart. I'm using my old books so they have all the familiar markings and notes that my teacher had put all over the place. My hands seem to know exactly when to reach and turn the page and I even stumble at the areas that I used to worry about fifteen years ago!

I am grateful for muscle memory because I don't think I would be able to persevere through learning these pieces note by note again. At least I can have some satisfaction from fudging my way through a piece, knowing its far from perfect but still getting to the end.

I'm very interested to know how long muscle memory lasts. Its been around these past 15 years so will it still be around when I'm 60 or 70? Some articles simplify it to be like how children learn to walk - well, most of us remember how to walk right up to the end!

So, just in case muscle memory fades, I'm going to hopefully, practice enough from now on to give it the boost it needs to last until I'm in a nursing home and need to entertain myself.

Music In Our House

One of the most common things that mothers of young children will say is that they're singing Nursery Rhymes all the time. They no longer know what the latest releases are but they know all the variations of "The Wheels On The Bus".

I'm like that too but I also try to share the music that I loved as a child, with Aaron and Adrian. When I was around Aaron's age, four and a half, all the music came from a records that my parents had. The record player was an extremely precious possession so we weren't allowed near it but my parents were more than happy to oblige us with whichever record we wanted to listen to.

Amongst the many records, I remember three favorites: 1) A Harry Belafonte album (but we only wanted to listen to the Banana Boat Song), 2) A Boney M Album (entire thing) and finally, 3) A children's one that had "She'll Be Coming 'Round The Mountain" as the first song. My mother must have been trying to share her old favorites with us because we know all the Elvis songs too.

With Aaron, I made a lot of CDs of all my favorite songs, including those from my childhood. So, he's very familiar with the Banana Boat Song, Elvis was an early favorite of his and he was singing "If You Want To Be Happy (For The Rest Of Your Life)" when he was two and a half. He was like a little old men and a source of great entertainment for all his grand aunts and uncles when it came to singing them a song.

I haven't been able to do the same for Adrian because Aaron has been monopolizing the CD Player and we listen to Jurassic Joe and his dinosaur songs most of the time. So, Adrian is good at those. Or so I thought.....

"Tik Tok" by Ke$ha came on the radio and all of a sudden, both Aaron and Adrian are bopping to it. Aaron can sing along! I don't even really know it. So, I eventually find out that not only do they know KeSha, they know Usher! Specifically, "DJ Got Us Falling In Love Again". Just imagine a baby voice, with baby pronunciation singing "Eyes eyes eyes..."

Guess what Richard has been doing whenever it was his turn to watch them??

I don't have a problem with it although, now that I think of it, I haven't exactly listened or examined the lyrics yet. Who knows what they could be singing about! Kids don't go into details anyway, they just look cute singing.

Meanwhile, I've been going through a Muppets phase - something I missed during my own childhood. Those guys were cool! And look, here they are with Harry Belafonte:



I want to balance their exposure to music to include more classical pieces, and I have tried (even with Adrian), but they just don't take to it as willingly or as rapidly. *sigh* Well, I suppose I can't have them liking everything that I like....

Urban Country Music Festival

We had such a big day out yesterday that I went to bed shortly after tucking Aaron in! Ten years ago, or even five years ago, I wouldn't have thought that I would go, very much out of my way, to an Urban Country Music Festival like this. It was all because of clogging that we went and we all had a great time.

All my regular readers know that I enjoy clogging. So yesterday, I tried to get Richard interested too. We set off on the one hour drive to Caboolture at 8am so that he could participate in the Introductory Clogging class. He did alright for a first timer and seemed to enjoy it but I didn't get the feeling that he's going to be as enthusiastic about it as I am. I did my clogging in the afternoon at the Social.

The clogging was only a small part of this huge festival. I honestly didn't expect it to be such a big deal but it was. Its not just for country music lovers, the festival had many live bands dotted throughout the areas playing both country and 'urban' music. We didn't have time to explore all the grounds and stayed only at the historical village.

I think there is usually an entry fee for the historical village but on festival days, it was free entry (the festival was free too!). The place was fascinating with an assortment of historical buildings from various parts of Caboolture that were brought too this site, positioned as a village would have been and then setup inside as they would have been in the old days.

Here are a few of the photos:









I do have one suggestion for the organizers - Give those rubbish bins a bit more of a historical look or disguise them better. They're ruining my photos :)



Aaron had a great day too. His friend from the state library was performing at the Children's area. Here they both are trying to get some 'customers'.



This bushranger had Aaron very worried. He was cracking his whip and firing his pistol and then he told Aaron he was going to rob the pub. And Aaron believed it all.



It was so much fun that I'm already looking forward to next year. There was so much more of the festival that we didn't get too!

Nations Of The World

I'm pretty hopeless at geography. Apart from the "common" countries that we frequently hear of, I'm terrible at pin pointing other ones on the map.

My cousin passed this to me a few months ago and I was hooked on the tune then. I started memorizing the countries and locations but eventually got distracted by other things. Aaron didn't seem all that into it at the time either.

But now, there's been a revival...



It was originally aired in 1993 so its pretty old and some of the countries, like Czechoslovakia, no longer exist. However, most of the other countries are still valid and this has been a really fun way of teaching Aaron about countries. Aaron seems to find it a lot more fun now and tries his best to sing along. I'm about a quarter of the way through learning it. Sounds like a waste of time but its good to exercise my brain once in awhile.

I get this mini sense of accomplishment when I manage to find some little country like Burundi on the map. (Try doing it without looking at where Yakko points.) Oh yeah, we have a huge wall map so it makes things a lot easier.



In case you're wondering, that KFC bucket is really a Captain's hat. OK?

I've Been Everywhere

Recently, I bought Aaron a children's CD of Australian songs. I have no idea what songs little kids here learn but I found it helpful that Aaron already knew all the nursery rhymes that are sung during library storytimes and playgroups. So, just in case they are also learning these Australian ones, I bought a CD. It had all the usual ones like Walzing Matilda, Road to Gundagai and Tie me kangaroo down, sport. Initially, I was enjoying the CD more than Aaron but he's familiar with it now and tries to sing a long.

There is one particular song there that leaves us all in fits of laughter every time. It is the "funnest" song I have heard in a long time. I can't even say some of those names fast enough let alone sing it!

According to Wikipedia, the original "I've been everywhere" was written in 1959 by Geoff Mack and made popular by Lucky Starr in 1962. Go here to see the Wikipedia map of where all the Australian places mentioned are located. You'll need to scroll down a little. Looks like there are plenty of other versions of that song now for many other countries.

Have a watch and listen. I can't say for sure if ALL the photos are from the places but I know that Indooroopilly and Canberra are correct. I think I've only been to 15 out of the 92 places there. There could be more if you count driving past those towns but I really don't remember.

Be patient. The first few slides are just words...pictures come later.

Ipoh Mali

I just got this in an email from one of my friends. Ipoh is a small town in Malaysia that I call one of my hometowns. Ipoh Mali means From Ipoh. 'Mali' is actually how the Chinese tend to pronounce the Malay word 'Mari', because they can't make the 'Rrrrr' sound.



Usually, I don't like listening to raps or hip/hop by Asian artists because they tend to copy too much yet lack the precision of the 'real thing'. But, this was different. It is not only because I come from Ipoh and got a real kick out of identifying the places in the video. I know the lyrics are genuine because my mother knows Point Blanc's family. And, the video did not have some flimsy, precisionless attempt at hip/hop by skinny non-dancers. I hate watching those.....

Here is some info on Point Blanc.