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Edie and Elliot, siblings and students here at the British International School of Houston, are eager to learn all they can about music. Even at such a young age, they play the piano and write their own songs.
This week, The Buzz Magazine featured our stars. Read the article here:
Name That Tune is brought to you by our youngest participants yet. Siblings Edie and Elliot Watson are elementary school students at the British International School of Houston. They both play the piano and have goals to learn other instruments – including the violin and drums. Read on for excerpts from the interview.
Name: Elliot
Age: 8
Profession: Year 4 at British International School Houston
Instrument: Piano
How did you get started playing piano? Do your parents play instruments?
Edie: My mom plays the guitar, the piano, the bass, and the other one with the strings…
Elliot: …the violin. She plays the violin, too.
Edie: My dad plays the recorder. But he doesn’t play that anymore!
Elliot: We always liked the piano, but we didn’t know how to play! So my mom started us in piano classes last year. But now because of coronavirus, we have to do our lessons at home with our mom.
Edie: She is really good at teaching us.
Elliot: So now our mom teaches us because she knows how to play the piano.
Did you both start playing piano at the same time?
Elliot: Yes we did. My mom used to take us to piano lessons, but she teaches us now because of coronavirus.
Do you enjoy playing piano?
Edie: Yes!
Elliot: Yeah!
Edie: I play every night – learning something new every night! But if it’s too late at night, we don’t play piano because we have to go to bed,
Do you both have interest in playing other instruments?
Edie: We really want to learn how to play the violin.
Elliot: I’m really interested in the violin and the drums. We haven’t started playing yet, but we are hoping Santa will bring us a violin. My mom has one, but it’s too big [for us].
Edie: Yeah. We need a smaller violin to learn how to play. One that is our size!
Elliot: Our cousin plays violin too. And we were hoping to make a song with three people in it.
You both already read music. Will that help when you go to learn violin?
Edie: We don’t know all of the notes on the piano, but every song shows us a new note. And we get better and better each time.
Elliot: Yeah. Our dad is really funny. He’ll say “How do you know that note?” or “I don’t remember that.” We are learning so much. It’s good that we already know how to read music. It will make the violin easier.
What songs do you like to play?
Edie: I like to make up my own songs!
Elliot: I like songs that use both hands. My left hand will play the white notes and my right hand the black notes. So you can include all of the notes. I also make up songs too!
How do you come up with your own songs?
Elliot: Sometimes when I play, I’ll press random notes and then I think “Oh that sounds nice” and then I turn it into a tune.
Edie: What I do, sometimes I go back to other music for ideas.
Elliot: Yeah! And sometimes, I’ll play a song and she will sing to it!
Do you take music class in school?
Elliot: We do take music classes in school. But it’s not piano class! We mostly learn things that we can sing in school.
Edie: Yeah. We don’t take piano in school. But we do performances and music. In music, we learn about beats and rhythm and notes.
Elliot: And that stuff is definitely useful for playing piano, too.
Do you like having a sibling who plays the same instrument?
Elliot: Yes!
Edie: Yes!
Elliot: We play together a lot. I play and Edie sings. We have a song called “Beach” that we wrote. We play that one together a lot.
Edie: I have another song I wrote. It’s called “Snow” because it’s soft and light sounding. I like to play my songs best.
This article is featured in the Buzz Magazine issue 16th October.