They used to cry and carry on when Bob would take out his guitar and I’d start to sing.

When I first entertained the idea of home-schooling, I had the notion I’d teach my kids to be musical wizards. SinceI never became a serious musician, I intended to give my children every opportunity to succeed where I failed.  Music really mattered to Bob and me.  To play together was a form of communion for us.

And they didn’t like it.  The little rugrats wanted our attention on them, and they could sense that Mommy’s drifting into song with Daddy was somehow creating a private, intimate experience between the two of us…And they were having none of it.

So we were faced with the conundrum of figuring out how to raise musical kids who didn’t seem to like when we played music.

In the end, we did it by neglect.

I gave them both a few lessons on the recorder, then dropped it.  Saoirse grew bored with it, Ula couldn’t see well enough to make out the notes.

Then I remembered how much I hated piano lessons as a kid.  And I remembered how Mr. Yoder punished me in pre-band by making me sit in the hallway when I forgot my recorder.  I remember him whining and throwing his batons.  I remember a lot of music teachers throwing their batons, giving us charts to record practice times that came with punitive measures if they weren’t filled out….and I remember a lot of guilt for not practicing.

But when I turned 15, I went to a jazz concert in town, and fell in love with the saxophone.

Two weeks later I was playing in the local jazz ensemble, and I never wanted to stop practicing.

With this story in mind, Bob and I developed the Hayes-Hooper Neglect and Party theory of musical education.  We took the kids to any concert we could afford where the girls were allowed to dance off to the side. We avoided stuffy venues where audience members were discouraged from moving their bodies to the music.  We observed that the girls needed to listen with their whole bodies, not just their ears.

And then we partied.  We had music nights early on when they were little, then resumed them in recent years.

And I didn’t bother teaching them a thing.  I just answered questions when they asked.

Somehow, as they went from concert to concert, and then listened as we grown-ups goofed around with our music nights, they grew into musicians.  Ula signed herself up for violin lessons.  Saoirse takes voice lessons.  This corner of our house is permanently occupied with instruments, and we all rotate through it in the course of a  day, visiting the altar of music, taking a few moments to learn a new lick, run some scales, sing some harmonies.

Our kids didn’t grow up to be musical prodigies.   Instead, they just love music, and in turn, music makes their lives joyful.

Which is even better, if you ask me.