New Blog

Hello faithful readers (by which I mean my three family members and two friends that read my blog)
I am changing over to wordpress.  My new blog is littlewomenacademy.wordpress.com.  I plan on blogging more often about my homeschooling adventures and life.  Look forward to reading about this past week with such lovely events including almost selling my house, the stomach flu, running over my cat, and the ultimate math project.  Thanks for reading!

The Unknown

Today I jumped into the unknown.  I have taught string lessons for 12 years.  I have taught cello, violin, and viola.  I am super comfortable teaching these instruments.  A few days ago, my favorite mom of one of my favorite students called me and ask me a question.  "Will you teach Bethany singing lessons?"  I laughed out loud.  WHAT!?!  WHO ME!?!  What a joke!  While singing at a sing-along with my father, and I was feeling pretty good about how I sounded, he turned to me and said, "You have your father's singing talent."  The bottom line is I can't sing very well.  It has taken the better part of my life not to modulate every time I stop for breath.  These are the things that were going through my head.  But, I didn't go with my knee jerk reaction which was to say something like, "No way in..." I listened to the mom's request.  She said things that made sense.  "You teach a lot at IFamily and I am sure it wouldn't be much different."  Yeah, we do solfege and scales in music class.  We do SING scales.  "She just needs a little help to be able to sing a tune".  So no arias...I might be able to handle that.  I told her I would think about it. 
Well, today was my first ever voice lesson experience.  I have been in choirs myself.  I've even conducted ward choirs, though that does not really count for anything.  I seriously jumped into the unknown.  I have been thinking and thinking about this.  I dusted off a lot of books on the shelves of my mind all about teaching elementary school music.  I did learn a lot of stuff in college... if I can remember.  So, today I taught a voice lesson to a sweet tone-deaf 10 year old.  It wasn't bad!  We sang solfege with the hand signs.  She didn't hit anything right.  Which, I can understand.  So, we started aural skills, a mountain I am still trying to summit.  I started simple with a is-this-note-higher-or-lower game.  Bethany did great.  Then we went to interval work.  I picked the two furthest away intervals I could do, the 2nd and the octave.  "Is it Do-Re or Do-Do?"  It was rough but, I feel like this is what she needs and I felt confident and capable (a surprising feeling). 

I may like this unknown.  Don't get me wrong, I am not advertising voice lessons EVER. I just think this could work.  Me and Bethany.  It is a combination that works wither we are playing viola or sadly singing our do re mi's.  So, I am crossing my fingers as I continue this journey through the abyss.  The vocal abyss... ooh, that's catchy.  Maybe I should write an opera.  No way in...