Dear potential readers,
Under Ioanna's supervision, I will try to continue our music lessons, but just for now, have a look on the outcome of the childrens' effort!
last week our music teacher and simultaneously my friend, Ioanna, took the flight back to Selanik. However, she didn’t want to leave Izmir before she manages to write something about this music experience with the kids. And for this reason, I am here to post her text and make my small comment on it. I have to admit that I would never expected Ioanna would be affected that much from this small contact with the children of Atolye, but I was wrong!
“Hello everyone!
I'm Ioanna and Ι have started teaching the children how to play the guitar about three weeks now. When Efklia told me that it would be nice if I could spend some time teaching the children how to play the guitar during my stay here in Izmir, I was more than delighted, as I am always when it comes to that. I was taught to play the guitar by a friend as well, so transcending this capacity to someone else, feels like offering this unique opportunity back to where it belongs; to everyone.
I was raised with the belief that knowing how to play music is an opportunity that you can always use always in your life to express your self, whether it is to celebrate a happy event, to share your feelings with your friends a sunny day or to dive into a sweet melancholy an autumn afternoon, or to express your sorrow, by making it feel a little more light. I always remember my father, who also learned to play the guitar by a zealus teacher in highschool (which is pretty rare in Greek schools, because Greek teachers are always bored and do nothing), saying: “Be well mr George, that teached us how to play the guitar! Otherwise I would have no chance to learn how to play music...”
And so, that's what my parents did; they sent me to learn music by the time I became five years old. I learned to play the piano, flute, drums and music theory, but it was not until my 20s when a friend taught me how to play the guitar. And that's indeed what music has been for me so far; something that is always there for me, to accompany my life journey.
And so the guitar lessons started. I was thinking how I should initiate the lesson, and I thought of those two -silly- questions and that's what the children answered to me:
-Have you ever taken any music lessons?
The children answered “no” somewhat sad.
-But do you like music?
-Yeeees!
And the lesson began. I first thought I should teach them some basic things, like the basic chords that are usually being used for the guitar, like Do major or La minor and many others. They took a pen and started writing down how to play those chords, while I was showing them how to play them on the guitar and Efklia was representing on the board where do you put your fingers on the frets for each chord. An other thing that I wanted them to learn is how those chords are represented in the guitar sheets, so that they will always be able to play any song that they like, just by googling it on the Internet.
They seemed pretty interested and excited, at least that's what they told me at the end of the first lesson! At the second lesson I thought Ι should find an easy song for them to play and so I chose “Love me do” from the Beatles! The song has only two chords to play (Do and Sol), so it was an easy and cheerful one. Each of the children started playing the chords and I was singing along. Ok, it was only their first times and playing a chord is not an easy thing to do, yet they managed to play it, after a lot of repeats and practice! When we finished the lesson, they put the song again on Youtube and I heard them singing along.
My further wish is for us to manage to play a song all together, using the two guitars that we have and adding other easy instruments too, like a flute or some handmade maracas. And my even greater wish, which I think is a feasible one, is to offer to them the same opportunity that I had; this road for escape and expression that's always there, called music. "
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