You all need to help me decide how "weird" this thing that Scott does is.
I can't figure out if all normal kids do this (and Claire was just abnormal). I love Claire, but she is definitely my child in this respect. Neither of us can carry a tune in a bucket.
You see, I played classical guitar for many years growing up, but eventually gave up when I realized that try as I may, I still coudn't tune my own guitar. I just COULD NOT tell when it was truly in tune. And if I could tell it wasn't quite in tune but close, I could never tell if I needed to tune it up or down. Pitiful.
So it kind of surprises me to see some musical talent in one of my offspring. I do think Scott has a knack for it. (Must have come from M.) I'm not saying Scott's a child prodigy or anything, but he is good with music. He remembers songs after hearing them once. He has always sung tunes quite accurately, even when he was very little. He picks out simple tunes when presented with toy instruments.
I think a fair number of kids do all those things though. I'm probably just surprised by them because Claire was an easy act to follow. Even now, when Claire sings a tune, it's barely recognizable.
But Scott does one thing that just blows my tone-deaf self away.
He likes to shift the lyrics to a song. He keeps the tune the same, but delays the lyrics, or vice versa. For example, he'll start the tune by singing the 2nd line of words to a song and then wrap back around so he ends the tune with the 1st line. Sometimes he even only shifts by a few words and breaks up the phrasing.
I suspect this is fairly unique. Am I right? Is this normal? Rain Man-esque? What do I do with this child?!?!?
Guess it's time to get him music lessons, huh?
2 comments:
That sounds pretty unique to me.
My husband has a good natural ear, and his mom is a very well-trained pianist (though she hardly plays anymore). She really regrets that his initial piano training was with the Suzuki method, which focuses a lot on ear-training. Since he already had a good ear he never got good at reading music. She wishes she'd put him with a teacher that taught with a different method. I've thought about that a lot because I don't have a good natural ear and could really have used musical training along the lines of the Suzuki method. So, those are my two cents (that you didn't ask for) regarding musical training.
That's a pretty cool talent he has. Unless the meter fits nicely, phase-shifting the lyrics seems to be difficult. But then we are talking about young, squishy brains here, not fully-formed, set-in-stone, adult brains. Maybe nobody ever told him that the two are supposed to line up.
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