More Garage Band

Today we have a new episode of the garage band (BTW I think this whole garage band thing will make a great show for reality TV!) It was Supriya, Wiley and Joe in attendance and yet another day of great internal struggle for me. For one I want them to play on their own and create music as they want it. That's the whole point of the garage band. On the other hand I can see that they are floundering for lack of focus and leadership. All of them are great musicians and in a few years they are going to be in serious bands. For now, though, I am afraid that this weekly floundering is going to create boredom which will lead them to lose interest. My solution to the dilemma is to let them "jam" on their own for most of the time and work on a known piece of music for the rest of the time.

I had handed their moms copies of Yankee Doodle Dandy yesterday. Apparently Wiley did not get his music. Joe had worked on sounding it out on his guitar. He did get the notes but he could not go as fast as the song needed to go. No matter; for about one glorious minute, we sang the song well. By we I mean Wiley on accordion, Joe on drums, Supriya singing melody and I singing harmony on the chorus. This is not the configuration we had planned in advance, but it worked. And that's all that matters.

The kids also created a short piece with Joe playing a weird bass-line on the keyboard, Supriya on a mini-accordion and Wiley on a concertina. It sounded strangely musical, perhaps a foreshadow of the music they will make in the future...