Why is it that school teachers feel the need to torture the parents of their pupils?

It’s the only reason I can come up for them to encourage the child to play music. I have no problem with them adding the kids to a choir when they can’t sing a note, but when the teacher discovers this, they seem to move them to another area in the music section, and hand them an instrument to join the band.

Cymbals are bad enough, but luckily still only played at school, one of the worst is the recorder… Which seems to be a teacher favorite.

Legend has it that King Henry VIII owned 76 recorders, also called English flutes (a pox on him).

However, its popularity waned with the introduction of the oboe, clarinet, flute, and other wind instruments.

In the 20th century, schools began using recorders in elementary music classes, much to the chagrin of parents worldwide.

How did the recorder become the instrument of choice for music education in primary schools? Does it really prepare children to play other instruments?

I doubt it… All I know is when both boys came home with one and attempted to play music, the inside terriers, plus all my husband’s working dogs, pursed their lips and joined in, and way down the road, three kilometres away, the local hunt club’s foxhounds joined in… it was bedlam.

The boys thought it was hilarious. I didn’t.

They gave up after a while much to my relief, but then, younger son for some reason decided to learn the violin. The teacher even let him bring it home to practice.

Which caused me to pen the following poem.

Ode to a Violin

You have no idea the state we’re in,
The baby’s learning violin.
Cotton wool buds dot the floor,
His brother’s gone to the place next door.

We’d no idea, so innocent, the day he came to say,
He thought that he would like to learn the violin to play.
That we could suffer so while it emitted screeching whines,
I really fear that he who’s eight may well not live to nine.

His nana says she loves him but his music wrecks her sleep,
His father’s gone off fishing, says that he’ll be back next week.
The hens are in a nervous moult as the tortured cat gut screams,
The dogs are howling in the yard, the woodworms fled the beams.

He flings the bow across the strings, Like Menuhin he wiggles.
Then he gets offended ‘cause his mum’s covering up her giggles.

But  – all in all – I’ll just decide to like it, and to lump it,
Because, you know, it could be worse…
He might have chosen trumpet.