Thursday, June 16, 2011

Chickens?

This week is Intermountain Suzuki String Institute in Sandy, UT, an annual event at which Georgia and I and scores of our music-making friends attended when we were young.

This year, as well as last, I had the happy accident of running into Georgia's sister, Paige, at ISSI, and it just so happens that my violin-playing daughter shares a class with Paige's cello-playing son. This class is for beginners: it involves singing, and balancing beanbags on your head, and waving your arms like a birds' wings, and tapping rhythm sticks together.

Today's activity was to cluck and scratch at the ground like chickens while we listened to a piece about such animals from Camille Saint-Saens' Carnival of the Animals. Truth be told, I felt like a ninny, clucking and bobbing my head and pretending to be a hen. But I looked up and saw Paige doing the same thing. What was even more hilarious is that we were both doing it with such conviction, in order to inspire our kids to join in! Come on kids, be a chicken! Being a chicken is fun! Listen to how the music sounds like chickens! Isn't this fun!!! Cluck! Scratch! Bob! Flap! And at that moment, and for some reason I can't explain, I had this image of Georgia in between us, clucking and flapping and playing the part of hen, in all her enthusiasm, and I just laughed. We looked ridiculous, but we were having fun. And I'm sure she would have had fun right along with us!

2 comments:

Paige Storheim said...

What good memories we are making! I thought chicken scratching was quite exciting??? Really I agree with Brit, it's for the birds. :). And Georgia would have loved it. She had a hilarious rendition of of a chicken. It is so much fun to have a dear friend of Georgia's to see every day during camp. I think every time we see each other Brittney shares a little of her bright spirit with me. She is such wonderful person to rub shoulders with. Paige

Lexye said...

That is hilarious! The first thing that came to my mind as I read this was Georgia's "Opera Chicken." She would sing "bok bok ba-gooooookkk!" with a high-pitch, fast vibrato. It was so funny! The other image I had was, as Paige mentioned, Georgia's rendition of a chicken. She told me that she and her family would go around in a circle, imitating animals as they sorted their laundry in their backyard, - no doubt where she mastered her chicken impression. :) I love that girl!