guitar

Katie is now the proud owner of a guitar!

We bought it today on Trade Me. We have been looking out for one for a week or two, and placed a bit on this one earlier in the week.

It was due to close at about 5.30, but the last 5 minutes were very exciting. We had been leading the bidding, and then someone passed us, with 20 minutes to go. We upped our bid by $1. In the last 5 minutes the bids were raised about 10 times - including a persistent bidder who had not made any bids up until that time!

Must have been very exciting for the seller.

Anyway, counting down the last few minutes was very nervous. If a bid is placed with less than two minutes to go, the clock reverts to two more minutes. That is, the auction won't finish until there have been no new bids for two minutes. We kept refreshing the screen, watching the time left go down - and the other sod would have placed another bid!In the end they gave up (obviously). The guitar cost us $72, which we were happy enough with. Here she is playing a chord.

Dancing to Bach

We had a fantastic day yesterday playing outside, and at playgroup, as the weather was so lovely. (It is not today!) When Isla asked for some music on, I decided I didn't want another nursery songs CD, so put on the first classical CD that came to hand - in this case Bach's Brandenburg Concertos.

After school Sophie put the CD on again, and here she is with Grace and Isla dancing with scarves. They really 'got into' the music, and the variations between the movements (and concertos) lent opportunities for a range of movements. Concentration, fluid movements, thoughtful pauses and then more (sometimes changed) movements.

I don' know if I've blogged about the hazards of taking photos when children play. However, it's very easy to change the child's experience by trying to record it - if they see you. Either they freeze up because they think they should do the 'right' thing, and can't think what you might want, or they freeze up in a cheesy grin because they like having their photo taken. Either way, you have interrupted their play, and also don't get your photo.

There are a couple of ways to get around this. One is to sit as inconspicuously as possible (on the floor is good) and keep taking photos until they forget about what you are doing. Another is to be very quiet and sneaky, and hope the music covers the sound of the shutter clicking. I used the later approach, and it worked pretty well.

visiting the organ at st mary's

This afternoon Sophie, Elanor and I went to check out the restored organ at St Mary's church downtown. There wasn't a picture on Google, but the outside of the church is here, and the choir loft is right behind the rose window pictured. The organ pipes etc are on either side of the window.

We don't know very much about church organs, but it was good fun getting to climb up into the choir loft, and it turned out that someone played some pieces on the instrument and talked a bit about how it all worked. Apparently it's quite a clever/unique instrument. We had a good view of the man playing, and S and E were very impressed that he had 3 keyboards for his hands, and another set for his feet. We also got an excellent view of the stained glass windows in the church, of which there are very many indeed!

You can read more about the restoration project on the church website here. No pics of the organ there either though.

After so much excitement we had to go for afternoon tea to calm ourselves down. :-)

harping in the holidays 2

We have had some lovely 'play' on the harp this week. The Little kids have been both exploring the sounds it can make, and playing 'peek-a-boo' through and around it. Here are I and G experimenting with sounds, and Elanor playing for us.

harping in the holidays

Rowena has been learning the harp for two years. Elanor has just started this year. In order to encourage practice, I have been getting the girls to leave the harp up in the living room over the weekend (Friday to Monday) and just putting it away while the Little Kids are here. (I think the strategy has helped - at least I have heard more practice than I usually do when it's in a bedroom. This, of course, is the chief advantage of a soft and beautiful sounding instrument!!!)

It's the middle of the school holidays now. Last week I got the girls to leave the harp out so during the week so the toddlers could see and touch it, and watch people have a play, and have an experiment with it themselves. It was very exciting for them to arrive and see such a big, new and exciting piece of equipment in the living room. Responses ranged from excited touching straight away to wary watching from afar, and slowing coming closer and experimenting.

At one point I was playing three adjacent low strings one at a time (like a short descending scale). I(child) must have been watching the strings vibrate, because she would put her fingers on the vibrating strings to stop the sound. When I plucked them again it was a deadened sound. I moved to several other strings, but she kept watching me and moved where she was touching too. This game went on for some time.

I wouldn't leave the harp out in term time. It's quite tall and heavy and I think it needs at least some supervision. One of the school kids can be in the living room during the holidays to keep an eye on it when the Little Kids are inside. But I'll leave it out again this week and see what they make of it again.

I guess our (hired) harp is a similar size to the one in the picture. It is on legs, and stands about 1.4 m tall I guess. Picture curtesy of Google.

Bic Runga Concert

The other event of the weekend was that we went to the Bic Runga concert at the Alana estate in Marinborough on Saturday afternoon. The weather turned out hot and sunny; we set up with our blankets and wine and nibbles, kicked back and had a great time. One small niggle was that she only sang for 65 minutes - not enough for 50 bucks. Her sister did some songs as an opener.

During the band's break, when Bic was singing with just her guitar, she suddenly stopped in the middle of the song and declared "there's a man having a pee in that bush over there!" She sounded quite taken aback (well, wouldn't you be?) and laughed, and it took her a minute to get singing again. I bet he was deeply embarrassed (should think so). Very funny.

Some more on Bic here.