Names, Shmames

August 2, 2009 by Rieshy

Misunderstanding song lyrics and movie dialogue has a long tradition in our family.  Recently a misunderstanding merged the two genres.  Grace, my 15 yo, is a huge musicphile.  She likes to set up different classical music for Jack, the 3 yo, to listen to during his nap time; she's very systematic about it.  Grace will introduce a new musical piece and then play only that piece for several weeks.  Yes I know, she's a better home school mom than I am.  This summer it was Tchiakovsky's 1812 Overture.  Evidently Grace peaked Jack's interest in it by explaining about Napoleon's siege of Moscow in dramatic terms.

After a week or so into listening to the 1812 overture, I was putting Jack down for his nap and he asked to listen to the "Monster" music.  I couldn't figure out what he meant until he showed me the CD box.  "Monster" music, Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, whatever.  I set it up for him.   I thought that he was perhaps imagining Napoleon's troops as monsters.

A few days later, big brother Luke walked through Jack's room during nap time and came out laughing.  Jack had asked Luke to turn on the "Monster" music.  When Luke didn't know what that was, Jack explained very slowly, "You know, Wachowski's music, the music that Mike Wachowski wrote about the bad guys attacking the city".  Who knew animated characters were that, well, 3- dimensional?

Later, I lay down next to Jack and asked him to explain what was going on in the music.  Did you know that at the end of the overture what you may have mistook for cannon fire is actually the sound of the good guys chasing the bad guys away from the front door with whips?



Have fun at Tuesday's Unwrapped.


2 comments:

dawn said...

THAT is hysterical. I love it!! I actually think that makes him pretty dang smart. You'll never think of the 1812 Overture the same way again!

Michelle DeRusha said...

That is so sweet! And I love that your daughter is introducing your son to classical musical so systematically -- wow, impressive!

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