Mum watering the veggie patch

Yesterday I drew a picture of mum watering her veggie patch in the garden. The hard part of it is the water. But I finally thought of a way to do it. The secrete is colour contrast, which means to make the area outside the water stream darker.

A diary

Yesterday I painted a picture about the boys playing painting in the garden. It was not bad though many places still can be improved. The small size dip pen is necessary.

Using a clothe to surround the strings can mute the guitar to most extent. It is a good way to practise in quiet environment. I don't think playing with finger tips is a problem at all, especially I want quieter sounds. It also provides a level of flexibility to touch the strings. I don't have to copy others' techniques as I can develop my own ones.

A thought

 It is not hard to understand why classical music nowadays not as popular as popular music. Music to most people is to relax and to be entertained. But normally classical music in a concert hall requires you to dress formally, sitting in a good gesture there for a couple of hours, being not able to chat or record, and listening to music often with a theme relating to those tough topics such as life and deaths, war and peace, and etc, making it similar to attend a lecture.

Playing Guitar in the Porch

 After I finishing lunch, I tried to feed my baby. But he refused to eat. I couldn't make him open mouth no matter what methods I tried. Then I gave up. "Let's play in the garden if you are still not hungry." I then bought him to the front yard. It is great to have a patch of shadow area near the porch. I gave the bubble wand to the child and demonstrated a bit for how to blow it or shake it.  Then I passed the wand to the toddler and I myself then sat down on the staircases of the porch. I played the tunes on the guitar while supervising the child. How enjoyable it is.

First day of winter

 I should stop blaming my instruments. They are all good for my purpose as an amateur player. Think of historical musicians like Abing. No matter how poor my instruments are, they probably are still better than the rugged Erhu of Abing. Different instruments have different pros and cons. It is just a matter of how you can master it.

I should always keep in mind that, as an amateur musician, I shall never try to achieve perfect techniques especially the hard ones. Instead, I should focus on developing my own voice -- expressing my inner world through a form of beauty, which reflects my own understanding of life.

Summer

While we were talking about this year’s winter being unusually long and cold, a storm came making many places flooded, and then it suddenly switched to summer when the rain had stopped. I think winter is the best season in Brisbane while summer is the worse. Though we can go swimming and to the beach in summer, it is really too hot. The sun rose earlier in the morning and fell later in the evening, and most of the day, it radiates the harsh sunshine to burn the earth. The scene outside the house is clean, clear, and beautifully filled with sunshine as if the earth has been painted with a damp brush for a transparent layer of golden oil. There is no lack of breeze but the wind is warm if it should not be described as being hot.

It is not suitable to be exposed to the sunshine for too long a period. This Saturday we hadn’t been to parks or beaches, and instead, we went to the nearby Kedron Wavell Club for lunch. I had a membership card for the club many years ago when I first settled in this suburb, but I’d lost my card for quite a time. I told to the receptionist and he was very nice and quickly printed a new card for me for free. We then walked to the restaurant inside the club and found a tidy and cozy table to have lunch there. The food was fine except the steak is overcooked — I chose medium as the style when making the order but the beef served looked like to have been at least well cooked.

The club is next to the library so it is natural for us to spend some time in the library before going home. Then in the late afternoon when the sun started to fall down, I mowed the lawn in our garden.

For my journey of music, I have recently purchased a few books of sheet music for Xiao and classical guitar, which should allow me to practice the techniques gradually and systematically.

I also bought an expensive digital radio. It costs me $99. Nowadays very few people listen to the radio. I remember that when I was in China around from 2017 to 2018, it was very hard for me to find a radio in stores. When I stepped into an outlet of electronic products, the staff told me they only sold television and radios in their mind had been outdated antiques. But it is not hard to buy one in Australia. The quality of the digital radio is superb.

Nurturing Arts

This year’s climate is a little weird as the winter season lasts longer than usual in Brisbane, but fortunately, it has become warm in recent days. Yeah, at least spring, if it is still not summer, has arrived.

To avoid direct exposure to the harsh sunshine, we decided to go to an indoor place to spend the Saturday, which was today, and the cultural centre was on top of the list in our mind when we considered where to go.

The cultural centre is located in the suburb of South Brisbane, which consists of the museum, state library, art gallery and performance art centre. We first arrived at the state library where there were some group activities for kids such as the programmes of Rhyme Time and Play Time. The Rhyme Time had been started when we arrived there. There were a group of young toddlers sitting surrounding two adults who were the teachers while the teachers were teaching them to sing nursery rhymes. We asked our son whether he liked to join but he showed no interest. Then we walked to the state museum nearby, where we expected to see some models of dinosaurs that Ivan would be very excited about. However, what pitied us is that the dinosaur garden was said to be closed temporally and the skeleton of the dinosaur was said to be not available until the middle of next year, despite we saw many specimens of many other animals there. The boy was not very interested in the specimens, and it seemed the escalator was more fun to him.

We then went to the art gallery where there exhibited some visual artworks. I was willing to spend time to admire some European-style paintings but the child showed no interest and as a result, we had to leave there earlier and stepped directly toward South Bank Parkland nearby, where the Queensland Performance Art Centre was located inside.

I understand that he is still too young to admire complicated visual arts and music but I am still trying my best to create a strong cultural environment with great artwork and music to surround him from his early years. Many people think the creativities of art and music were born by nature but I believe nurture plays a more significant role. I always thought I myself was a negative example, as I should have some innate talents for painting and music but because of lacking the environmental support during childhood and teenager-hood to develop my own interest, I eventually grew up to be very mediocre in these fields. I remember that when I was a child, my dream was to be a painter after grown up. I spent quite a lot of my spare time painting during primary school. I bought many tools for painting such as watercolour pigments, painting brushes, and papers, as well as textbooks, and whenever I had time, I would paint. But later, academic studies were becoming more and more significant. This was especially true when the entrance exams for senior high schools and universities drew close. I gave up my hobby as it was time-consuming. My journey of playing musical instruments goes longer as I am still an active amateur-level classical guitarist and flautist. To me, playing classical guitar and flute is the best way to relax and alleviate pressure. All the techniques I learned have been obtained by self-taught, which is why I think I had some innate capabilities in music, but I will be much better if I had a teacher or a better music education. Music and painting were among the least important subjects in my elementary education.

Now I have become a parent, and I want to give support as much as possible for my child to develop his own interest, especially music at this stage as he has shown some interest in it. I selected a list of nursery rhymes and frequently played the songs for him. My wife and I liked to play the testing game for him. Every time we play a nursery rhyme to the speaker to him, we will ask him for what is the name of the melody. If he answers correctly, we will praise him. My list currently contains around thirty songs, and he has been able to recognise most of the tunes by hearing only the first line of the accompanying before the song entering to the main melody. I have bought him a toyed recorder, a toyed harmonica, a toyed cat-shaped keyboard, a real soprano ukelele, and a 25-notes glockenspiel. He can only generate some random notes from the recorder and harmonica, and today he said the word “dirty” after blowing some sounds with the toyed recorder. He didn’t like the toyed keyboard as it was really too naive even for him as a toddler. We knew that he in fact was interested in the keyboard as he was very excited to touch keyboards and pianos in musical stores. I am a classical guitar amateur, so I regularly practice my guitar playing. My boy often brings his own ukulele to play together with me. Sometimes I will hold his little finger to press on the strings to play a simple rhyme. When he is not playing together with me, he often orders me to play his favourite rhymes. For example, when I was playing Greensleeves or Jasmine Flowers, he often asked me to stop and play Jingle Bell or The Muffin Man which are the tunes he is able to admire. The glockenspiel has given me much pleasure with him. I hold his hand when his hand is holding a mallet, and I control his hand to play some rhymes he is familiar with. I find I enjoy the procedure very much.

Just on the morning of yesterday, when my child woke up, he unexpectedly murmured some fragments of the rhymes, such as “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Stars”, and “Do you know the muffin man?”, which had surprised me so much, as if my hard work to nurture his music capability had been much rewarded!