The Power of Music

I’ve been working with Friendship House in Belfast for five weeks now, helping with their afterschools drop-in and homework club. The homework club is mostly kids in upper primary school, aged about 8-11. But there’s one 12-year-old, who’s in secondary school. She comes in every week. Last week, she had to practice for her piano exam. Fortunately, the centre has two electric keyboards. So we dragged one of them out of the storage room and set it up on a chair in the hallway. And I helped her practice for 45 minutes, reminding her where the notes are, showing her how to hold her hands properly so the same finger always plays the same note, and encouraging her. This week she still had to practice piano, so we did the same thing again. Only this time, she got distracted more frequently. “Amazing Grace” and “Jingle Bells” were interspersed with short conversations about life and religion. She’s a very sweet, bright girl, and I’m really enjoying the chance to work with her one-on-one.

I also bring my guitar to Friendship House every week and play simple songs with the youngest group at the drop-in, kids aged 4-8. They’re rather distractable, and they don’t all want to sing, so it can be a bit of a challenge holding their attention. But some of them absolutely love it. Their favourite song is “Hallelu Hallelu,” and they always ask to sing it about five times. They also really like “Jesus Loves Me.” After I’m done playing – and sometimes while I’m playing – a few of the kids will walk up to me (some shyly, some not) and strum on the guitar. If it’s an appropriate time, I’ll let them strum it with their fingers for a few moments while I change chords to play a song. The look in their bulging eyes is truly precious: fascination, amazement, joy. I’m rediscovering how powerful music can be to bring people together.

 

Word of the Week: is actually more of a speaking habit than an actual word. The Northern Irish have a tendency to make names of food by shortening the actual name and adding “ie.” For example, then, biscuits become “bikkies,” breakfast is “brekkie,” a grilled/toasted sandwich is a “toastie,” and roast potatoes are “roasties.” We cooked roasties for part of the fairly elaborate Christmas lunch at the Senior Citizens’ Lunch Club on  Wednesday.