Sophia's musical journey

 


'Sophia repeat that again please'

A recognisable tune emerged from the old, damaged ukulele strings of a beloved instrument which has been with Sophia since she was a baby.

I crouched down to peek under the kitchen table where our six year old was sitting grinning like a Cheshire cat. 

'You've done it again haven't you?'

Sophia uncurled herself from her siting position and left her hiding spot, ukulele in hand and wandered off smirking to herself. 

A quick musical timeline for you all. 

A quick musical progression timeline: Sophia has enjoyed six years of music appreciation and has had ready access to a variety of both Fisher Price and real instruments. 

She has experienced rhyme sessions at local libraries, music themed sessions at holiday parks, and musical circle times at playgroups with children within her age group. 

In the summer 2021 we brought a keyboard which she liked to explore. In January 2022 we acquired an upright piano and hired a music tutor for piano lessons and theory. 

In May we realised that Sophia can play songs on the piano by ear. In early June she moved from 'Hot Cross Buns' to attempting 'Für Elise', despite only having half a dozen songs in her repitorie by this stage. 

In mid June I found her playing 'Mary Had A Little Lamb' on the ukulele, having learnt it by ear, (she's not having ukulele lessons).

Recently over the summer Sophia also enjoyed a music appreciation lesson via video messenger with one of my friends who sings beautifully.

Sophia loves composing songs and will set stories to the music, writing about them as well. She has taught herself 'Are you sleeping brother John', 'Deck the halls', 'London Bridge is falling down' and the beginning of 'Fur elise', working them out by ear on the piano. 

She has realised that two of these tunes have been used for certain Spanish songs she has been learning from YouTube, so she will sing along in Spanish as well. She has been taught to play 

'Mary had a little lamb', 'Old man Donald', 'Twinkle Twinkle', and 'Hot cross buns'. Her finger placement has massively improved, as has her musicality across the board, from theory to practical. 

She learns on the upright piano which has note stickers on the keys and then moves what she has learnt to the keyboard which doesn't have stickers on it, proving she is learning the key layout as well. 

This coming year will be both interesting and amazing to witness to see how she continues to progress. 




 

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