Saturday, February 18, 2023

X for Xylophone

 

Time for a little story.

There was a bunch of little girls. The girls lived in the same neighborhood and attended a local primary school. They were youth club members of a xylophone group that had its base at a district youth club. That type of youth club was called a "common room" then. It was a place where kids, supervised by an instructor/club employee, played games and did art projects, and it belonged to the city district housing administrators.

Ladybirds Performance - 12 January 1975

Anyway, "Ladybirds" was the name of the xylophone group, and my mom was our music director. She prepared the music arrangements for us and taught us to play the music pieces on the instruments provided by the club management.

We did play various tunes that we learned by heart: classical music, pop songs, and folk melodies, as well. From time to time, the Ladybirds performed at other culture-related places and city district clubs. Our xylophone career did not last long, but it was fun.

I can still remember some of the tunes we played. Here is one of them - can you tell what it is?

E,E,G E,E,G

E,G,C,H*,A,A,G 

D,E,F,D  D,E,F  D,F,H,A,G,H,C

C,C,c  A,F,G  E,C,F,G,A,G,

C,C,c  A,F,G  E,C,F,E,D,C

Ladybirds

Our performance dress code was white blouses, white tights, and navy-blue skirts. The red ribbon made a bow tie. At some point, at my mom's request, the club management provided a ladybird-like fabric: red velvet with black polka dots. Our moms made skirts out of it. Those skirts completed our Ladybird gear.

PS

*H is B in the English nomenclature.

3 comments :

  1. I love this! I would love to see a color photo of the group in their ladybird beetle (ladybug here) skirts! Which one is you? And can you tell me the name of the song? (I am not musical at all).

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    Replies
    1. Thanks, Amanda! I am the one in the middle. Yeah, I know some words are different here, but I am used to the ones I learned in Europe, though it sometimes causes confusion here... I also like "birds" more than "bugs" :-). Brahms' Lullaby. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXC3dxZw-2A

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    2. While ladybug seems to be the more common term here in the USA (well, at least where I grew up), I think entomologists prefer using ladybird beetle.

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