Listen to the pit-a-pat of rain. Tap out a tune on some pots. Blow through a dandelion trumpet. Music, if you keep your ears attuned, is all around.
And, according to music makers who have spent their lives immersed in joyful noise (and even not-so-joyful but deeply soulful sound), parents strapped for funds or time needn’t sign up their children for a single piano lesson, or write one check to the voice teacher across town.
“You start by discovering sound. Rub your wet finger around the rim of a glass, and pretty soon everybody at the table starts doing it. You’ve got music right there,” says Ann Sayre Wiseman, co-author of “Making Music” ($9.95), who calls herself a “creative inventor.”
It doesn’t cost a cent, Wiseman says, to fill your life with music: Sing folk songs around a campfire. Poke holes in a bamboo pole and make it into a musical pipe.
Summer is a fine season for mapping out musical journeys, without leaving home, says Homa Sabet Tavangar, author of “Growing Up Global: Raising Children to be at Home in the World” (growingupglobal.net, $16).
She begins simply enough: Each time you hop in the car, crank out a new sort of music. “If you always have the radio tuned to top 40,” she says, “you’re really limiting” the wee ears in the back seat.
From what’s on your iPod to the live concerts you find nearby, make it clear that you love a broad range of music. “Children’s ears become accustomed to different sounds.” Putumayo World Music (putumayo.com) is one of Tavangar’s favorite sources for a global playlist.
Keep an eye out for free concerts at museums and parks, or “like” cultural institutions on Facebook, she says, to get updates in your news feed.
“And don’t make it a burden,” says Tavangar. “This isn’t homework. Do it because you love it.”
One of Tavangar’s favorite ideas is to plot yourself a string of virtual globe-trotting trips. She calls it “Continent-in-a-Weekend,” and it goes like this: Spin the globe, and see where you land; anchor your weekend with a musical performance from that continent or country. (See the above websites for ways to search for a global music concert nearby.) And before the concert, find a restaurant (or borrow a cookbook from the library) with good eats from that continent.
If your kids fall head over heels for the music of a particular country or genre, Tavangar says, you’ll find ways to deepen their musical discovery.
Music, after all, is never out of reach.
World of music
Here are three sites that can locate a global concert near you:
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