Today I Learned…

Today I learned to read music.

Today our faculty meeting was SES Learns.  Teachers signed up to lead mini workshops with colleagues.

I planned to lead a few workshops, which I did.  But when I saw some of the choices my colleagues were offering, I wanted to cancel mine to go to theirs!  Foil Art – Repousse?  Making A Picture or Document into a Poster?  Mindfulness?  I wanted to learn!

I had the second “session” free to learn.  I chose Music Literacy with Cody.

I walked in wanting to play an instrument.  I didn’t realize that I really wanted to play the glockenspiel but there before me I saw violins or were they violas.  I wasn’t sure but I did know they weren’t glockenspiels.  “No way.”  I thought to myself.  But I wanted to play an instrument, so I sat down.  I was nervous.  I laughed it off with my colleagues, Jody and Kerri and my teacher Cody.  There were notes on the Smartboard.  As Cody began teaching us about beats, and measures, I flashed back to fourth grade clarinet lessons.  I lasted four weeks before complete confusion led me to quit.  Sitting there on the stage with those notes before me, I almost feel the clarinet in my hand and feel the feel the long ago desire to get up and leave.  But I didn’t. I came to play an instrument.  I was staying and learning until I actually had one of those stringed instruments in my hands.  Damn the nerves, desire was going to win.

I stayed.  I listened.  I practiced.  I learned.  I read the notes with Cody’s clear teaching.  I slapped the beats on my things.  I held the violin (it wasn’t a viola).  I learned not only where the D and A strings are on the instrument, I learned how to read and write them on a staff!  I think, if I heard my teacher correctly, when Jody and I wrote the notes on the staff, we were composing!  And to think, all I wanted to do was play an instrument!

The energy that comes from learning something new is special.  For me, today, it fed my playful side.  It fed my curiosity.  It fed the both the teacher and the learner in me.

Thank you, Cody for leading.  Thank you Kerri for laughing and assisting.  Thank you Jody for learning right alongside me!