Daily Duos

We try to get a good dose of music in each day, the best kind being that which we can make together. Mateo seems taken with all of it: the piano that he explores with his dad, the cello that plays to him during his afternoons at home with his mom, the bowing and plucking of Bernardo's violin students, whom we sometimes sneak over to the Conservatory to listen to in the early evenings. This fascination is to no credit of our musical skill but rather to Mateo's sense of wonder, as he is seemingly just as excited by the sight of my cello case, white and shiny as it is, and three times his size. He starts breathing quickly and shifting his weight back and forth between his right and his left foot (while in his exersaucer chair, of course) and reaching out with his arms as soon as he spots me with the case in my hands. Our afternoon music makes me laugh because, consciously or not, as soon as I start playing for him, Mateo begins banging on the musical touch pad of his little exersaucer chair, effectively accompanying me and my Bach suites with electronic excerpts of a) the opening lines of Beethoven's 5th Symphony; b) Old MacDonald; c) the melody of Vivaldi's "Spring" with synthesized drumbeat or d) assorted animal calls (cat, dog, cow, lion). Bach is either laughing along with us or rolling over in his grave.