Matt's New Hobby

Matt used some of his Christmas money to pursue his newest passion: The Banjo. How exciting!

He ordered this one from Amazon and now spends his spare time watching instructional videos on YouTube. I love that he'll be modeling a musical instrument and constant learning for our little boy. He hasn't decided on his first real song yet. He wanted to go with Modest Mouse, but I begged him to pick something a) a little easier and b) that could be our baby's song. I read this excerpt from Living Passages for the Whole Family: Celebrating Rites of Passage from Birth to Adulthood and have been thinking about our "baby's song" ever since:

The story is told of a group of people
somewhere on the vast continent of Africa
who celebrate their birth not on the day they were born,
not even on the day they were conceived,
but on the day they became a thought in their mother's mind.
On that day, the mother goes out and listens for her child's song.
Upon hearing the song, she sings it.
She goes back home and teaches it to her mate.
Each time they mate, they sing the song.
On the day the child is born, the people
gather in the birthing room and sing the song.
This becomes the newborn's song for their whole life.
When they cry for mama as a baby, she sings the song;
when they fall and skin a knee as a child,
the song is there to comfort.
All through life the person can always find solace in their song.
And when the person comes to the time of death,
again the people gather in the room and sing that song.

--As told by Anita Jones

It's making me want to pick up an instrument, too. I used to say I wanted to play a cow bell in a band (mainly because I'm not musically-inclined and it seemed like the easiest thing to pick up). Now I'm thinking about the glockenspiel...

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