The Sound of Music

 "The strings all soar, the reeds implore,
the brasses roar with notes galore.
It's music that we all adore.
It's what we go to concerts for."

My daughter Bailey is a music lover.  She is fascinated with musical instruments and can find a way to make any found object make a musical sound.  She enjoys rhyming words to create her own "songs."  I grew up playing the trumpet and french horn, so I'm hoping this love of music continues to grow and that one day she will learn to play an instrument of her own. 

This week's most popular bedtime story has been the musically themed Zin! Zin! Zin A Violin by Lloyd Moss.  The book begins with the "mournful moan and silken tone" of a lone trombone playing a solo.  With the turn of each page, the author introduces a new instrument as a new musician joins the stage.  The trombone is joined by the swinging sounds of a trumpet, forming a duo.  They are soon joined by the bright and brassy french horn, turning the duo into a trio.  As musicians and their instruments are added one by one, the stage is eventually filled with the entire orchestra, poised and ready to begin. 

I love that the author combines music education with a form of counting that is not often seen in children's book, providing a lesson in numerical group labels that may be unfamiliar even to adults...solo, duo, trio, quartet, quintet, sextet, septet, octet, nonet, and finally the chamber group of ten known as the orchestra.  I highly recommend Zin! Zin! Zin! A Violin for your little musician.