Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Watch THIS Video Instead

I'm guessing a good many of you have spent an evening watching pieces and parts of the now-famous video of Cho Seung-Hui. So I thought you might like a little "break," pun intended.

This video was made just a few years back, and it features now 15 year old Sierra Hull and her friend Ryan Holladay, who is now somewhere around 14. Ever since I found this gem (in search of different versions of Salt Creek which has been under my skin for the last week or so) I find it's been very hard to come up with excuses not to practice.

Sierra Hull is not a lot different from some of those kids who were killed in Virginia, except that she's a good bit younger. Last year at IBMA she participated in a mandolin workshop I attended. She is poised and articulate beyond her years, and completely at ease playing alone or in front of a crowd. This video is, I believe, an out take from IBMA's education program video, "Discover Bluegrass," designed for classroom use.

I might be considered quirky, turning off the tv and pulling out board games and instruments for my kids to play and play with. And there's no guarantee that my kids will be nicer or smarter because of it. But I do feel that as a whole, we isolate our children far too much so that we can indulge our own childish needs, shove them off in front of the tv or with a handheld game instead of engaging and challenging them. I can't say whether what I do will keep my kids from hanging out on summer nights in parking lots. But if they do, I hope they have their instruments, and they had better be in tune!

4 Comments:

At April 19, 2007 8:11 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

your children might gain more intelligent consciousness from playing around w instruments than spending time mindlessly mushing out in front of the Television. I think we gain from interactively entertaining ourselves with music and other intelligent activity. A Positive choice I say!

 
At April 19, 2007 8:40 PM, Blogger Mando Mama said...

KYT, interaction is I think the key. There is a place between too much and not enough that I try to find. And now that the weather is finally breaking, listening and looking for frogs is another activity we can reawaken!

 
At April 20, 2007 10:57 AM, Blogger Blueberry said...

Love those kids! Thanks for sharing! Aren't they fantastic?

 
At April 20, 2007 3:39 PM, Blogger Mando Mama said...

They are! I love seeing kids with instruments. And that Sierra, man o mando, she was born to play that thing. There is this bunch of kids that play together here and there, I think they call themselves Juvenation or something along those lines...it just makes me want to stop traffic for 'em.

 

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