A big THANK YOU for the reading recommendations both in the comments and several thought-out emails from when I mentioned in the last post we were looking for reading ideas; will take me awhile to locate some of those here for a browse and, most importantly, Rockstar approval 😀 Been writing about Rockstar’s last music course on and off and his results will be out soon so I wanted to rush this one before they’re out…
2 years, 4 books. 8, if you count the “light homework” books. This course had been recommended by the local mum of a former classmate/schoolmate since Kindy days, and we did it as much for the local Cantonese experience as for the music (well we live here right, should understand the culture better, we thought. At the time when we started we were hard-pressed to find any teacher in this center willing to take on English speakers but I think nowadays they’ve started having more English-speaking teachers.)
This is the post I originally intended to write about the course… Which was one of those things we initially got into half expecting Rockstar not to finish, particularly during his more erm, “rockstar years*”.
(*Rockstar is “Rockstar” on this blog because he behaved like one – y’know, how HK is Land of the Toddler Interview Madness, and there are some little kids here who are just very, very adept at interviews – as in maybe I cannot get into some of these Kindies but they can 😀 So anyway it has often amazed me that short of walking on water some little kids are like – well, You Know. And in which case Rockstar was the Toddler Interview Anti-Christ.)
So early on one of the things Rockstar developed an intense dislike for was Music Time at Wisekids (which I maintain was more to do with another toddler taking his shakers – twice – and it going un-reprimanded. Y’know, when there is a more aggressive toddler and the mum or helper just announces airily, “Let them learn to sort out their own problems,” and it’s their toddler who is taking everything. This kind of thing REALLY annoyed Rockstar especially when he was younger. It could make him shut down and totally not cooperate.)
This would manifest, once the music started, in him walking calmly to the exit where he would proceed to wait patiently to be let out of the place. Imagine a 2 year old standing at the closed door and responding, “No, thank you,” to anything you try to do to get him to participate. Politely turning down any incentive, toy or snacks. Politely accepting any punishment you can think of. But You. Can’t. Make Me. Participate. (This phase was deadly. “But You. Can’t. Make Me. Participate.” is probably one of the reasons he got retained in preschool (that particular branch btw doesn’t exist anymore today) – the teacher eventually said to us “I didn’t know he could speak, he never said anything.” One of my biggest wake-up moments was around the time I was quitting my job and out and about with roughly 2.5 year old Rockstar – we ran into this other mum with her child, who enthusiastically went, “It’s Rockstar! My child used to be his classmate!” – the child in question was still not very steady walking so I’d guess about a year old. A year-ish difference as the kids get older isn’t that much of a gap I think, but in baby and toddler years, am I right to say it’s massive?)
Anyway. Then at 4ish yrs Rockstar really wasn’t very musical. However somewhere at the back of my mind I figured he already didn’t like to use much color (we once thought he might even be color blind), rather than say, more whimsical drawings he would produce diagrams 😀 and so I figured Well, at least a little help with music? Just a half-baked thought that he might even do a bit better at areas he was relatively strong in if there was a push for him to grow a couple neurons in another department like music <sheepish> And so we leveraged a love for Kindy into a brief ABC Music extra-curricular for the duration they had it.
And then after, there was this course… Term after term we watched other kids bow out (ultimately 3 out of maybe 10 in our class did the final test/exam after 2 years but that’s a bit misleading – while some younger kids did stop because they found it difficult, one or two may have found it too easy. One former classmate is already up to ABRSM grade 4 or 5 piano, practicing at least 2 hours a day, and she’s probably at least 10 months younger than Rockstar, like most of the others. Another tiny girl was getting into trouble I think because she was bored. She would either play really well on her first couple tries (she had a musical elder sibling and mum), or simply not follow anything because she had stopped paying attention.)
(These are relatively rare pics of Rockstar looking bashful and blushing over having to sing something and later dance, early on – he k-ind of attempted in the end but then we had to dig the blushing puddle out from under the organ pedals)
I wondered if/when Rockstar might one day want to stop. But then he liked banging on our old electric piano, his motor skills are for the most part quite alright even though he erm, didn’t sing. (Kudos to Kennedy School for getting him to enjoy it here.)
He could also mostly survive on rhythm, I think the whole time signatures and timing of various music notes in each bar thing is a useful way to understand fractions and well, Rockstar quite likes math.
Also, we found this course erm, especially fun for boys – it starts off real slow, and because they use electronic pianos/ organs most of the time, the little boys probably enjoy adjusting/ fiddling the switches to the right instrument/ setting etc. In other words, particularly if you have a young boy – BUTTONS! SWITCHES! And well, having to listen to when they get to hammer those keys! They had to do that more and more – pay attention to the cues for how to adjust to the right instrument setting, turn the volume up or down, and yes finally hit the upper or lower keyboard at the right time when say, a CD was playing, among others. Quite a fun way to make them do it. (If they follow instructions – sometimes if they didn’t they really got in trouble, depending..)
Age matters. As mentioned, Rockstar was the absolute eldest. (Since this class was conducted in Cantonese which is really not his first language that was probably for the best.) It wasn’t that uncommon however for him to have local classmates attending one Kindy in the morning, another in the afternoon, and then showing up for this class after. Maybe another reason some of them found it tough – they might have been tired.
No skipping ahead is allowed. During heavy renovations works of the center we frequented, there was a discussion of alternative courses in session – no matter how sound a child was, they could only join other classes underway that were behind their current course. There’s also no joining this course halfway from scratch, no matter how musically inclined the child is (so basically really no skipping ahead).
The Miss has been waiting for awhile to join one of the toddler courses which is just only opening up. It bears mentioning that we had 3 other friends looking into this course – the only one with an older toddler was encouraged to join a different center. However the two who were slightly younger than the Miss – particularly one who at the time hadn’t crossed his second birthday – were strongly discouraged from joining. That caught my attention because they needed more students to open up that class – but they still told one of my friends she would just be wasting her money if her son wasn’t quite two. Apparently it makes a very big difference to what the toddler is able to absorb in the class. In the end I heard they very reluctantly accepted a boy two weeks shy of his second birthday.
And finally, in the last few months leading up to the last test/ exam Rockstar would take to complete this two year course, when he opened his mouth I heard it. That higher C.
He hit it using falsetto.
Why yes, that is a porker in the sky.
ps: To clarify, “that” comment that annoyed me sometime ago re Rockstar’s musical ability (or rather lack thereof) was never about singing, pitch/musical ear – it was about his ability to read notes. Sight reading.
