March 2016 - Chris Schuette

Girl Group

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about my trip to the guitar store with Isla (I won’t say the name, because it’s not like I’ll get a discount on Mandolin Tuning Fluid.) I should probably give a bit of backstory.

Isla has enjoyed music her entire life. As she gets older, I’ll be interested to hear how music affects her, since she can only experience it with the help of her cochlear implants.

Remember those?

We might learn that certain instruments sound less pleasant to her ears than others. That being said, she asked for and received a guitar last Christmas. The guitar has seen better days, but she loves to strum and I’ve been teaching her how to hold it properly.  She knows the names of the parts of the guitar and she seems to understand that it should rarely be stepped upon. Considering that Patty and I had no idea if Isla would ever be able to hear, well, anything, it’s astounding that she shows such a natural love of music.

Cate also seems to have an innate love of music as she sits at the piano and deliberately plays individual keys (as opposed to simply pounding on them, like daddy) But Cate’s pride and joy is the ukulele she received for Christmas. She loves it, and she even lets me play it every once in awhile.

I should point out that Patty and I make music and musical instruments available to our girls, but we don’t make them do anything they don’t want to do. Eventually, if they’re interested, they can take lessons from a real teacher. We just want the girls to be familiar with how music is made and to simply love the experience. As the following slightly blurry photos demonstrate: so far, so good.