My 5 year old was in the car with me listening to country music when Charlie Daniel's Devil Went Down To Georgia came on. My little chatterbox was silent throughout the whole song and when it ended she said "Mommy, that was the best sounding guitar I ever heard!"
I laughed and when I told her it was not a guitar, but a fiddle, she replied, "I wanna play the fiddle and beat the devil for Jesus too!"
I told her that she could have fiddle lessons when she gets to 1st grade, but she can beat the devil for Jesus every day when she "obeys the Lord and her parents and turns off her naughty thoughts." Let's see if it sticks! ;)
LOL! THAT's the part of the story my Dad would really love...he's convinced that fiddle is the best instrument out there. ;-)
We played a little "gig" at our parish's elementary school this spring...here are some of my notes:
Monday morning we had another "gig", if you want to call it that. The music teacher at my parish's elementary school is a friend of my mother's, and asked if we could come, sort of as a St. Patrick's Day event, and play for the kids' classes in the morning. From what I remember, grades K-4 each got half an hour, and then 5-8 had a combined class. For each class, we introduced ourselves, told a little bit about our instruments (how many strings they had, did a little sound sample, depending on the age told a little bit about technique or history), and then played some songs for them. Opened it up for questions between songs.THAT was a great gig. Some of the kids got really into the music, tapping their feet and counting along, and were very interested in the different instruments. Some of the questions were kind of funny...my Dad is no speed demon on the violin (though he does TRY), and one kid make a comment about having seen "a man with a fiddle, and he played REALLY fast! How come you don't do that?" Ouch. ;-) The 4th grade was my fan club - it was a hoot! Every question was about the mandolin, and when at the end of the class they were allowed to come up and see things up close, I got mobbed. I let them hold it and showed them a two finger G chord, which they seemed pretty thrilled to be able to do, simple as that is. After they left Dad mumbled some things about the mandolin being an inferior instrument for people too lazy to learn the violin, but I think he was just jealous...
This was before I started to attempt fiddle, BTW. Dad still teases me about my "fan club"!