On the stereo

We recently got a little CD and Cassette player/radio from Daniel's parents and we keep it down in the kitchen. I like music, but if I have it on for more than a normal CD's length or 2, I'll start to get a headache and crave silence. But as I said I do like music and I want my kids to appreciate music, especially since I plan on then learning how to play at least an instrument or two in order for us to have family sing-alongs and to entertain me when I am old. :)

At the last Catholic Underground, the featured artists were the band L'Angelus, a cajun band from Louisiana and better yet the 4 oldest kids of a faith-loving Catholic family. They write a lot of their songs and yet they play classics like Brown-eyed Girl and Shout...both very fun songs to see friars dancing and singing to. :) Their mother learned how to play the guitar after she married and then she taught the kids how to play. The mom plays and sings with them also as well as some of the four younger kids, but they were not touring with them since they are quite young. So go check them out and buy a CD or two. It's really good and you'll be helping out a Catholic family spread the faith.

Ever since Daniel and I read Maria von Trapp's autobiography called the Trapp Family Singers which was slightly portrayed in The Sound of Music, we've had this dream of having our own musical Catholic family. Now, I always laugh a bit at this dream because I am definitely not musically talented...my musical history is this: took piano lessons in grade school (I can still see myself sitting on the bench outside my teacher's room frantically scribbling in my practice record book the number of hours I was supposed to have practiced but didn't actually do...hmm, I wonder if I ever confessed that?); I also played the bells or xylophone (along with some other percussion instruments...to this day I still don't understand how I did that since I have trouble clapping in rhythm with everyone much less picking up or keeping any sort of beat) in the 30-member Catholic school junior high band for my 8th grade year; I sang in the church youth choir, but was never asked to sing a solo or lead the responsorial song...and now that I think about it, I was never put anyway really close to the microphone either...hmmm; and since then I've made two attempts at learning the guitar. Both lasted about two weeks. The last one conincided with Daniel's commencement of taking up the guitar. He's still going at it and enjoys playing Red River Valley for me. I was recently re-introduced to the xylophone and how fun it can sound by a friend's band called Popple. You can check them out too and buy their newest CD called Plaid or their other favorite called Pulled in Both Directions which contains two quite good xylophone parts, the Puppy Dog Song being one of them.

Yes, so I'm thinking that our family musical career should not depend on my talents and praying that the children do have more talent than myself...we'll see. I can always do the managing...and the homeschooling...and this is so hypothetical, since my oldest isn't even 4 yet and he hasn't shown much musical interest beyond trying to de-tune Daddy's guitar by knocking it down and tightening the strings. :)

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