Music

Thankfully I can carry a tune and I have a little knowledge and appreciation for music, but I would not call myself musical.  Dave, on the other hand plays the hammer dulcimer and sings beautifully, what a gift!  The interesting thing is that Dave and I have very similar musical tastes...as in the only cd's we buy are either Caedmon's Call (or Derek Webb/Sandra McCracken) or redone hymns by Indelible Grace or Red Mountain.  That is kind of odd in some ways.  Don't ask me about songs that are playing on the radio these days.  I can sing almost any song off of Debbie Gibson's album Out of the Blue, Mr. Wendal, Blame It on the Rain, or Straight Up...come on Paula Abdul was awesome in the 80s.  I actually did a dance routine (let's use the word dance loosely) to Straight Up with my friend Jill, and we performed in front of the 6 other girls who were invited to my 13th birthday party...my first sleep over.  We even wore matching shirts.  Actually since I am in the mood to disclose all my adolescent moments, my best friend, Erica and I did a lip sync to "Fat Baby" by Amy Grant...let's hope that wasn't taped.

I guess that means that anything that has played on the radio before 1994 I probably know about, after that unless it is Hootie or U2, count me out.  Anyway, so we like music, mostly.  We sing together all the time, and if we are at home there is usually something playing on the ghetto blaster (remember when we had those?).

Last year for Christmas my parents bought the girls a series of cds on classical music and composers.  I actually remember listening to them as a kid, and thankfully that knowledge came in handy when I took Music and Art Apprec in college.  The girls love the cds and most recently we have been listening to Mozart, Brahms and Verdi.  The funny thing about Verdi is that he did mostly operas, and the girls thought it was hilariously funny when they broke out into singing in Italian.  They were laughing so hard.

This Christmas my parents bought Annelise a cd called Geography Songs.  This was another cd I used to listen to as a kid and all these years later I can still remember several of the songs.  Last fall our neighbor gave us a states jigsaw puzzles that we put together daily.  After we finished, Annelise would ask me to sing the states songs.  I could only remember the Southern Border and the Eastern Border, so I was thankful that my mom bought her the cd so now she can sing all of the songs.  I need to catch that on video, I mean how many 3 year olds can sing a song naming all the states on the Southern Border?  Unfortunately there are probably a lot of adults that cannot do that!

HC is amazingly musical too.  She can hear a song once and remember the tune and the words.  And she runs around the house whistling all her favorites.  While we were listening to Mozart the other day she was naming all the instruments that she heard playing, amazing! 

I had forgotten how much I love Dvorak until I was listening to that CD.  I enjoyed it so much I just ordered his New World symphony on amazon (along with another gift for Dave since he ruined my surprise birthday gift...maybe I can keep this one hidden, though it is not as cool as a Pomplamoose t-shirt).  In the mean time I'll try to catch Annelise in the act of singing the Geography Songs...was a cutie!