folk music barn

Once a month, Viljandi's Pärimusmuusika Ait -- "Folk Music Barn" -- hosts a special children's hour, where a musician comes and shows them different instruments, they sing songs, play games, and, at the end, eat pancakes.

Since Marta still has a cold, I went with Anna alone this morning to the Barn, which is close to our house. In one of its smaller rooms, we gathered ... mostly mothers and children of ages between 2 and 7 or 8. There was one other dad there. The musician sat on the small stage (you can see it on Anna's right in this picture) and played different instruments, and explained how they are made.

Altogether, the children learned about bagpipes, different kinds of folk music flutes from Africa and Mexico, a jaw harp, and a soprano saxophone. The instruments held Anna's attention, but she was too small to really understand how they worked. Hopefully Marta can come to the next presentation:




Afterwards, the children played games and got to play with the instruments. Anna was relatively shy (believe it or not) but later found herself beating a big drum made from cow hide:



At the end of the hour, the main event: pancakes with jam and peppermint tea. Anna was telling me she was "hungy" the whole time -- the music was nice, but she was more interested in the pancakes. And there is something very special you should know about Anna. This week she finally started making a "g" sound. You may recall that Anna has substituted the letter "t" for both "g" and "k" in the past. She would say "tar" instead of "car." She still says "tar," but she has learned to make the "g" sound, and sings "ga ga ga ga ga ga ga" to the melody of Old MacDonald:



PS: I know these photos aren't the highest quality. I take them with my Nokia E63.