Songs in the key of life

Riley is starting keyboard lessons at school. We had to rent a keyboard and they have a music teacher that comes once a week and works with the kids who choose (read:pay) to learn to play an instrument. Her choices were recorder (oh dear God, please don't choose that!) or keyboard, and I'm pleased to say, although the keyboard is a wee more expensive, I'm glad she chose it. I don't think I could stand to hear her blasting on that stupid brown plastic instrument of torture. But, it did bring back memories of playing "Soldier, Soldier" in the 4th grade during my recorder training.

So yesterday, the keyboard arrived and we set it up and she played me her practice song, Mr. Penguin. Except she was playing it incorrectly. She said her teacher told her that middle C is in between the two black cookies. Um, I don't think so. I showed her where middle C really is and she looked at me amazed, and said "you've done this before, haven't you?" as if such a thought had never occurred to her. Then she said, "oh, that's right. I remember now". Yeah, Mom actually knows a wee bit about music. Not too much now, don't get crazy, but I do remember how to read it. So I played Mr. Penguin for her, then she played it for me, about 200 times. Luckily, it's a short song, consisting of only three notes, middle C, D, and B. Can't wait to see how this goes. Stay tuned.