Of xylophones and zebras

September 29, 2008 by Barbara.

On Saturday, Reid received a glockenspiel as her instrument for this session on Kindermusik. One of the other parents asked what was the difference between a glockenspiel and a xylophone since the difference seemed to be only that the metal bars on the kids’ glockenspiels weren’t painted in primary colours. Shannon shocked us all with her reply: xylophones have wooden bars. All these years we’ve been living a lie! What I’ve been calling a xylophone is actually a metallophone. I shared this revelation with a few of Reid’s former day care teachers and they were equally surprised.

When we were in Quebec City, I read the following on a cup from Starbucks, “When I was young I was misled by flash cards into believing that xylophones and zebras were much more common.”* I feel like I should find the author and tell her that the situation is even worse than she thought. But that might seem a bit extreme and even like stalking ;+) I’ll focus instead on Reid’s mallet-grip and teaching her the “musical alphabet” as Shannon told me I must for homework.

(*The Way I See It #297, written by Amy-Elyse Neer, Starbucks Customer)

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