Mila has taken to playing Tim Feeney-style percussion, placing various objects on the surface of a drum and exploring new timbres. Her favorite items for this technique are some Mardi Gras beads and a bowl. Other instruments of choice include: toy piano, kalimba, recorder mouthpieces, Korg KP3, theremin, Roland digital piano, and of course turntables. Her toy instruments live under my electronics table in the music/play room, creating one shared musical space for the family. While I play music, Mila will often join in on the toy piano underneath the turntables. She is really showing amazing growth at the keyboard, playing single notes and intervals in rhythm, methodically moving up and down the keyboard then breaking out into a frenzy of baby-fisted note clusters. One of these days I want to record an improv session with Mila and other musicians from Mobtown Modern.
It's great to watch Mila enjoy making music on her own terms, and I hope she always sees it as enjoyable and not something that her dad just expects her to do. I don't want her to feel pressured into being a musician as she gets older. I just want to provide her with access to all types of instruments that she can pick up when she wants. Of course that's still a kind of conditioning, but can parenting really be without indoctrination?
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