Welcome the 1st List No One Asked For. Sometimes I like to make random lists. I generally keep them to myself since they are almost always of things that no one has asked for a list of, but since I continue to be kind of stuck on any long-form writing, I’m going to try this.

Today’s list is: Musical Instruments We Have In Our Home

The instrument featured in this very unprofessional photo here is a bowed psaltery. It was my grandmother’s and was given to me when she passed away. I need the bow re-strung. As you can see, I put little stickies to help me learn the notes. I know how to play a little bit of “Ode to Joy” on it, but that’s it. I haven’t spent much time on it, but I’d love to eventually. (You can watch/listen to someone playing one here if you’re curious). It spends it’s days sitting in it’s case on display on top of the next instrument on the list…

My mother’s piano. This is the piano I learned to play on through elementary and middle school and maybe into high school – I don’t remember when I stopped taking lessons. Unfortunately, when I stopped taking lessons, I also stopped playing with the exception of Pachelbel’s Canon in D which I had memorized and kept flowing from my fingers for a while after I stopped learning new music on the piano. This is also the place my mother played and learned and practiced new choral music. It has been moved 3 times and hasn’t been tuned. (You may be seeing a pattern here that I am not the best at musical instrument upkeep). It lives in what we call the “reading room” because the room has one big chair and a large bookcase. The brass lamp has always lived on top of the piano and it gets really hot if you leave it on for too long. The bench is full of piano lesson books and choral music.

We also have a recorder purchased during my daughter’s elementary school years. It’s no one’s favorite thing. The recorder always makes me think of that Full House episode where Stephanie is painfully learning to play one.

Another in our rarely played instrument collection is a harmonica. No one ever figured out how to do much with it but it still hangs out in someone’s closet.

My daughter has a ukulele that saw some love during this year of cancelled everything. She got it a few Christmases ago but really just got into it this year.

Last year my son got a melodica for Christmas. He saw it on Youtube and Santa came through. He actually loves it and had it out on the floor just yesterday, waiting for someone to step on it.

At this very moment, my daughter is making good use of the drum pads she got last Christmas and the drum lessons she’s been taking, so in keeping with the obvious pattern of asking the elves for new instruments, the North Pole grapevine told me to make room for one more this Christmas…

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