Here’s what yesterday and today were like. I wrote this for a family member just now and sent it to them. I’m describing my granddaughter and me. She’s 6. Enjoy! xo
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Laileigh comes in & says we are going to practice guitar. I get mine out of the closet (white). She gets her matching two (white guitar & white ukulele) out. She asks for mine. I’m cringing that she doesn’t bump it. She holds it upside down (backwards) while sitting on the floor. That’s so she can strum the strings, on the body, more easily, with the main part on her lap. I take hers and start tuning everything. She starts tuning everything too, not a clue, but does it professionally. I start explaining how to hold a guitar and what I’m doing as I tune. She listens intently. She says she will now create a song and immediately does, idea, tune, rhymes & all. Yesterday she created 3 or maybe 5. Good ones too. She is ultra creative. She got her first pink ukulele when she was 1. I forget if she was 1, 2, or 3 when she wrote her first song. Probably 1. Nothing fancy but with ideas, structure for 8 lines or so and rhyming words with her own thoughts. Like Butterfly, butterfly, don’t fly away…Butterfly butterfly stay and play…Butterfly butterfly where did you go? Butterfly butterfly, on my nose. As good as that.
Then I sing and play whatever comes to me. Today it was Dolly Parton “Rocky Top.” So then I find it on You Tube. We watch several versions, singing along. I tell her I remember when Dolly was young, in the 70s. We watch one of those. She has loved Dolly since age 1 because I would play her videos, and Michael Jackson's, for her. I've told her my mom liked her. I grew up an hour south of Nashville and my mom would play the Grand Ole Opry on the kitchen radio. I've taken Lai and her mom, Skye, my daughter, to Chapelgate, (where I gathered Contemporary Christian Music songwriters, like a private hideaway) for Lai's first birthday, and to the Grand Ole Opry. I have a picture of Lai playing their piano in my old Grist Mill, there, dressed all in pink, age 1. Lai has looked through all the photos in my book I wrote about it, "Chapelgate, a Spiritual Memoir," and has seen my book for years, at home. She notices Dolly has a rock video so we watch that. She tells me I need to subscribe to Dolly’s channel because she noticed I’m not. I play and sing along with the songs and she asks me, amazed, how I know how to do all that? She has asked while I'm playing and singing Dolly's rock one. I've been playing and singing along to all of them. I say Bax taught me that one, the rock one, we had a band called "AngelBax." She makes a frown at him (cause we broke up and she knows that hurt me). I find one of his videos and show her. "Is that him?" she asks, and tells him he only has two viewers, ha! Dolly has WAY more. She defends me. I tell her he was really good, that's why I liked him, we both wrote songs.
I also explain that I’ve been playing since I was 6. She’s 6. So she’s proud SHE started at 1, 2, and 3. I find a video about chords and explain and she tries to put her fingers correctly - on MY guitar which is too big. She prefers mine but is also very proud of hers. We sing Dolly’s rock song 4 Non-Blondes “What’s Up?” We’ve already sung “Rocky Top” 4 times. I tell her Dolly always sang Country but then decided to do a rock album a couple of years ago. As she listens she hits my guitar in time like a drum, as it is on her lap. She tells me she'd be good at drums, to get her drums. I say Gabriel asked me to let him teach her drums. She lights up and says Yes! Why didn't I let him? I tell her because he doesn't live here. She says she likes Florida, Orlando, we can fly there! I tell her I tried to get Bax to like Gabe so they could play Bax's songs he wrote (his idea, originally.) I type in Gabe's name and let her see him playing drums. I point out one I filmed of him in Austin. I tell her all my friends are really good musicians, like Bax was, Gabe, and Andy.
She's been playing guitar at Andy's ranch and his songwriter's circles since her first pink guitar, and knows & loves him. She and a friend's 5 year old "made a band" with another 4 year old on Andy's porch during one of his musician weekends. They were serious. Another of Andy's friends, age 10, with a ukulele she knew how to play, was their "coach." Laileigh will remember Lizzy forever because Lizzy showed her how to play, like Lizzy was. Next, I ask her to help me find a song I’ve heard her singing to and she does, Ed Sheeran “Perfect.” We play along and sing it.
Then Skye calls her and Lai goes and begs for 5 more minutes. She rushes back in to tell me she succeeded and has 3 more minutes. She now says to put the guitars up so we can play “Don’t Wake Mommy Up” which is a game we invented. She loves our routines. We play that a lot. She is the mommy and I’m the grandma and I get all 5 of our kids and pretend to try to keep them quiet so she can sleep cause she had a long night at work. She LOVES anything where she’s grown up. Anyway, like that! xoxoxo Angel
The next day... I just studied Dolly's albums on her website and on Amazon. Then I chose 4 of them and ordered the physical cds. I'll learn the ones I like and start teaching Laileigh...
Copyright 2024 Angel Isaacs All Rights Reserved
Written August 23, 2024 @10:38 pm
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