Ryan chose strings as an elective in 6th grade and after what seemed like MUCH deliberation decided that he wanted to play a bass. Bass and cello players at his school rent an instrument to practice with at home and have a school instrument to play in class. This was the first one we rented for him-a half size bass-not literally half the size of a full sized bass but smaller. Ryan had a hard time carrying it.
All were quite curious about it. We have told Ryan that he will have to make an effort to keep the bow put away so that Max doesn't think it's just another stick for him to eat!
Guess it is a good thing we have a large car!!!! and I am thankful that most of the time these instruments stay at our house. Ryan has decided that his bass is going to be named Daniel-after his favorite Manila friend who has now moved to Korea. Scott is holding the 4 valve tuba that spent the summer with us and is named King Kong.
So when we realized that Ryan would be playing a 1/4 sized bass at school we switched the rental one so that he would play the same size at home and at school-this one is a much more manageable size for him. It sounds great though they are still just plucking the strings right now. It seems that most of the 20 kids in Ryan's strings class are new to their instruments.
Ryan has taught us the strings are E, A, D, and G-the way to remember that is Elephants Always Do Geometry. Violin strings are the opposite G, D, A, and E. Also if you are wondering viola and cello have the same note strings but we don't know what they are.
This different tuba came home to stay at our house this school year. Scott is playing King Kong at school. This one is named Hulk.
Scott's opinions about music are funny to me. He likes happy, peppy sounding, fast moving tempo music-not unlike his personality most of the time. Even when we lived in Manila and he took piano lessons on our electric keyboard if a song was slow moving and quiet he didn't like it and didn't want to practice it. I told him OFTEN as he practiced to slow down that no one was chasing him as he played! His current favorite to play on the tuba is "Hey, Baby,"
Ashley says that when she gets to middle school she wants to play the flute or clarinet. That may be a very good thing unless we start tying the bass on top of the car. I told her recently that the flute's sound was a good fit for her personality too-high and trilly!
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