Welcome to Three Songs After Dinner
Three Songs After Dinner is a blog about a family that enjoys playing music together. Not long ago, our musical expertise included two boys, now 6 and 8, taking Suzuki violin lessons, and two parents who had been fairly average high school band members. My oldest son has a passion for everything musical, especially fiddle tunes. His fiddle teacher suggested that he teach us all to play instruments, so that we could accompany Gus. We didn't have a good reason not to, so he loaned us a mandolin, we dug a guitar out of my in-laws attic, bought a small washboard at an antique shop, and embarked on a musical adventure.
We've learned a lot along the way, had plenty of fun, as well as some frustration. The blog is called Three Songs After Dinner because in our early days we tried to play 3 songs after dinner every night. Since we knew 3 songs, it seemed a reasonable request, but we rarely made it through all 3 before someone got frustrated that the fiddle was too fast, the guitar too slow, the mandolin out of tune, or the washboard just too loud. Fast forward a year or so and we can play and sing after dinner for as long as we want, and sometimes we do for quite a while. We're not ready for gigs or anything, but we have a good time sharing music as a family, with friends, and at jams.
I started this blog as a way to record the adventures of our Family Band, share what we're learning, what's working, what's not, resources, songs, and stories. I hope to find others who are playing music with their kids, their neighbors, their parents, aunts, uncles and grandparents. I hope to help others who want to play music with their family but don't know how to start.
Recipe for a Family Band
Ingredients:
- Any number of family and friends
- Any number of instruments (including but not limited to guitars, mandolins, fiddles, banjos, washboards, spoons, harmonicas, pianos)
- Some resources
- The desire to spend time together doing something fun and rewarding!
- One or more 100 day practice challenges
Instructions:
Combine ingredients, practice frequently, have fun, and stick with it!
