Sounds Like Fun Symphony Program Strives To Teach Kids The Language Of Music

In the music room of the Spokane Opera House, Andy Wilkes held a French horn in his 9-year-old hands. The instrument gleamed like a gilded sea shell, elegant curls of brass winding to the flared bell at the end.

Wilkes arched his back, took a great breath and blew into the horn’s mouthpiece. His eyes squeezed shut with effort.

A sound backed its way out of the horn.

Maybe it was not a sound you would normally hear at a symphony. Maybe it had more in common with sounds from an African safari. Nonetheless, the sound was good to Wilkes and he blew and blew and blew again.

“It was cool,” Wilkes said of his musical adventure. “Making all those kinds of pretty notes.”

Wilkes and a couple hundred other kids and adults bellowed on horns, banged on drums and tried to coax a melodic whistle from a flute on Sunday afternoon at the Spokane Opera House.

This instrument petting zoo was part of the Musical Fun Fair kicking off this season’s Spokane Symphony’s Symfunnies series. With lots of laughter, the series aims to interest kids in music by engaging them in entertaining concerts and fairs.

“People hear ‘symphony’ and they think velvet suits and sitting with their hands folded for hours. It’s not like that,” said William Berry, who was dressed as the 18th-century composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

When he’s not wearing a great white wig, a blazing red jacket and a frilly neck collar, Berry organizes the Musical Fun Fair and also plays trumpet in the symphony.

“It’s much easier to teach children and get them to enjoy music before the age of 10,” Berry said. “After that it’s like a foreign language. You can still learn it, but it is much more difficult.”

The language of music had many different expressions at the fair. For those who didn’t want to listen to instruments or try to play them, there was an opportunity to hurl them with great abandon. Small, floppy, bean bag instruments of course, sailing through the air to land on a game board painted to represent a symphony.

“We try to wear them down a little before they go into the concert and sit down for an hour,” Berry said.

This sidebar appeared with the story: NEXT The Spokane Symphony’s next Symfunnies concert and music fair will be in March.