Music school open day

This afternoon Rachel, Ruth and I are going to watch the Nutcracker. The girls violin teacher told us that the Christchurch School of Music was having an open day this morning - so we headed into town as soon as Dad was back from work.

10am just before Amberley - the clouds looked like they were rolling off the hill. So beautiful. But also quite a change in temperature already. It was quite cold in town.

Clarinet. The lady said that Rachel
had gotten the nicest sounds out
of anyone who tried today. And
she was amazed at how well Ruth
did being so young.

We walked around looking in on some music lessons and then headed to the room were you could try different instruments. It was really lovely to get to touch and try such a variety.

The flute is actually really difficult to get the hang of.
Rachel kept trying though and figured out how to get
the blowing right. I have new respect for flute players.
Again the lady with these instruments was impressed
with what Rachel was able to do.

The girls were a bit intimidated by the double-
bass. So it was up to Mum to have the first try.

The notes of each string are the same as a violin (G,D,A,E) but opposite in that G is the thinnest and E the thickets. Rachel pointed out that the thinnest string (G) is even thicker than the G on the violin (which is the violin's thickest string).

Ruth was keen to have a try too. She even got up on the

seat but had to really stretch to get to play.

Then onto the Cello. Rachel has a
friend who plays the Cello.

Doing a good job with the bow too.

The lady is obviously not used to

such a small child being able

to keep a bow straight. :-)



Ruth doing some plucking.



Then onto the bassoon. The
first double reed instrument
they tried. It's really hard.



Ruth having a go too.









I have always loved the sound of a
saxophone so it was nice to give it a try.
And although it's a single reed
instrument, it still takes strong lungs.



Rachel managed to get more sound than
I did. I only managed to play 2 notes where

she managed at least 3.





The Oboe was just too hard for Ruth. At
least she gave it a try though.



Back to a double reed though on the Oboe. There is a lot of

technique in getting the blowing right and Rachel started to
get it. Eventually the lady took over the fingering while

Rachel blew. What a beautiful sound.