MUSIC MAKES A GAME

Press, Volume LXXV, Issue 22769, 22 July 1939, Page 5 (Supplement)

MUSIC MAKES A GAME

Molly and Peter were playing in the living room. It was a rainy Saturday, and the day dragged, They longed for something new to Suddenly Peter said, ■ "I fcnpw what, Molly, let’s put the fire music from the Valkyrie on the gramophone and make up a dance. Molly jumped up. “The Wagner records fire on the bottom shell oi the cabinet,” she said. . They got out the fire music and listened to its swelling harmonies.

“We could make a dance about a house on fire,” said Molly. _ ‘ An old house that nobody lived in. See, down there’s the quiet part. Everyone in the town is asleep and here they wake up and smell spaoke and see the fire. Then they ring the fire alarm and race outdoors . . . and the fire engines come!’ Peter liked that dance, and after it was over they both lay down on the floor to think of another one. Mother came in just- then. I think that’s very exciting music.

Let’s do another gam?. I’ll put ori the records and you* .walk* or-crawl-er Stretch 5 bb circle-or dp,, whatever the music tells you tqdo.” Sheput on some quiet records first—that would be restful afterVthe excite-, ment of the fire ‘v/ f First she put oh;*,- the /quiet “country music” fronU the Beethoven Sixth Symphony,'..apd MoHy was a tree with twifikUiig 'leaves on swaying branches. Then she played, part of the .Mozart Kleme Nacht Musik, and both children pretended they were lulled to sleep. Mother “woke them up” with “TWo Guitars” and they played “Dis-a-dis-die" and “Heigh-Ho” for them to “march home from work” like the dwarfs in “Snow White.” Then she put on the third movement of the ’ Beethoven Seventh Symphony, and Peter jumped into a lilting, leaping dance that felt like that tune.” They both liked the music of the "Troll Dance” (‘ln the Hall of the. Mountain King’) from the Peer Gynt Suite by Grieg,

and: h3d '-.a;good two gahiirnphy trolls who Started padding slowly round, thd faster and.fastter until they-wdeijn. a Wttd\troll-whirl. '-ffLfc sh”s . time -other, quiet time might ipfa gwa ideai ,flo > %-pTaho’'game,. she sUgge^di ß »“we’ll take turns sthink.ittgof a way to make the piano say something that sounds like our idea. For instance, Peter, you could easuf make thunder and lightning.” . Peter made a lovely streaky of lightning, at the treble end of the piano with booming thunder at its bass. Molly danced tip and - down. “1 can make a mewing kitty,” and she did a soft meeooooo up high. “I can do, train bells at a cross* ing,” 'said Peter, and he did a sharp “tihg-ting-ting,”

They thought of a dozen other patterns: dishes falling off a tray, wind in the trees, knocking on a door, a baby crying in the night everybody yelling at-a football game, a cricket at dusk;- the sound of a waterfall, the milkman’s horses early in the morning. Then Molly said, “We’re making up tunes! We could make, -up real music to sing!” Mother helped her get a pad of paper to write down, some of the tunes. Molly made one with chords which sounded very swset* ■ Peter made up a more compU* cated tune like this:

The* Molly said,: “Le^.imake « real sbng;r with Words, abbut how we go swishing in the leaves in the fall!”

“Swish, swoosh, swish, swoosh. Here Igo jump in the leaves.” ■ Peter liked books so, of course,» was Peter who climaxed the afternoon saying, “Let’s, make a whole book of otir own tunes and dances. We can make them up every rainy Saturday and sometimes after school in the afternoon!”

Any of you can have fun with music as Molly and Peter did

A lady went into a shop and bought a dozen eggs. On the way home she looked inside the bag ana

found she had only 10. Of course she hurried back to the shop ano made a complaint ~ “Oh, that’s all right, ma’am, r®plied the shopkeeper at once. £W“ of them were bad, so I threw them away for you.”

—’MATE CHEERY CHICK, Kirwee.