Flute and Clarinet

As many readers know, Julia began playing the flute this past year at school.  The band director strongly suggested that all band students take private lessons over the summer so as not to lose the skills they have gained throughout the course of the year.  Luckily, as I am also a flautist, I can skip paying for a teacher, and I have been doing lessons for Julia myself.

One of the highlights of doing these lessons is the chance to play duets with my daughter.  Madeleine was THRILLED to have the responsibility of holding my phone and taking a video of Julia and I as we played together:





Julia was proud of how she sounded; I don't think she realized quite how well she was able to blend with me until she had a listen.  Madeleine was even MORE proud of her own camera skills.

MADELEINE: Mommy?  Did you like how I did a CLOSE-UP of Julia?  Because I always notice YOU doing that when you're taking a video of US!

Bravo to both my talented girls!

Madeleine doesn't have a band instrument of her own, but that's okay, because she put her handy-dandy art skills to work.  Behold, Madeleine's clarinet:

Madeleine loves playing her clarinet by humming into the water bottle/mouthpiece.  It's really awesome when I'm trying to concentrate on things or practice my own music and she goes marching through the room loudly making mouth sounds into her "instrument."  I can't complain too much, though, because she seems as satisfied with her hand-made clarinet as she would be with the real thing.  At least I can avoid the recorder fiasco of two years ago wherein I had to buy Madeleine her OWN recorder, after Julia and the entire third grade got them for music class.  Because let's face it: the only thing worse than ONE kid blowing shrilly into a recorder at home is TWO kids blowing shrilly into recorders at home.