Mrs. Bonds was the music teacher in elementary school. Looking back at it, I realize how good of a teacher she was and how much I learned at a young age about music that people growing up in Utah didn't learn. I remember learning different music terminology over the years and about different instruments. I think playing the different instruments was one of my favorite things. We also sang a lot of songs and had performances. In 4th and 5th grade you could be in choir which practiced before school started. I was in choir and even tried to get out of it at one point when Regan decided to quit. It didn't work because Mrs. Bonds begged me to stay. We also learned about the famous composers. I think it was 5th grade when everyone was assigned to make an instrument and we created a play with everyone using their instruments. My instrument was two blocks with sandpaper on it. Not very creative or impressive when the kid I had a crush on brought in a hot pink plexi glass guitar. Mrs. Bonds did a good job of looking at the flexibility of my instrument, pointing out the fact that it could be used by either hitting them together or rubbing them together making a scratchy sound with the sandpaper. This made me feel not as stupid I guess. Another thing that I remember was the cool contraption she used to draw a staff on the chalkboard. It held 5 pieces of chalk at once and made a perfect staff in a matter of seconds. We would play musical trivia games with two teams and she would call out different things like types of notes and rests and you would race to the chalkboard to draw them. I was always really good at this. I also enjoyed musical sharing time when you could play things on the piano for the class. At the time I could only play chopsticks but that didn't stop me from showing off!
On a side note: Chris and I were talking the other night about the handicapped neighbor, Jim from my earlier entry and I realized that it wasn't keys that I heard when he walked around. It was tap shoes! He always wore take shoes and you could hear him walking by from inside the house! Jim and his musical spoons and shoes!
1 comment:
I loved Mrs. Bonds. I think of her whenever I watch You're Got Mail because they sing that clarinet, horn, violin song. The clarinet, the clarinet goes doodle doodle doodle doodle det. Good times.
What a coincidence, my instrument was a wood block. Dad took a log and cut a slit in the side. I felt better when we spray painted it gold.
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