Wednesday 30 June 2010

Alphabe-Thursday X is for Xylophone

Now that Jenny's link is up I see she was ahead of me on this one. I wrote this before I saw her's - honest! I have been wasting time trying to find a picture that I could point you to, showing the sort of xylophone I had when I was little. You all know what they look like, but all the pictures I found were much brighter than mine was, I guess because the modern ones are painted in rainbow colours and are wooden, whereas mine was second hand and metal and going a bit rusty. But I loved that xylophone. It was educational, I started to learn about how musical scales worked and about the fact that things of different sizes made lower or higher tones. So then I drove my mum mad going round the house with my little xylophone hammers (red wooden balls on the ends of two slim handles) hitting everything in sight to see what sound it made. Then came the exciting moment when we filled up milk bottles with different amounts of water and tried to tune them to a scale. Hey ho, happy days!
What other things did Jenny's team come up with for X. Link will be up on Thursday morning I hope. Jenny if you read this, what time does it go up on your page and how far behind the UK are you? I'm going to stay up one night to get at the front of the list!
And HERE is the link

20 comments:

  1. The xylophone was always the most popular instrument in our elementary school band!

    ReplyDelete
  2. My two youngest siblings each had toy xylophones and drove us all mad!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I LOVE THE Xylophone. Seriously. Too fun. I am now wondering how it got it's name?

    ReplyDelete
  4. It still remains my favorite toy!

    ReplyDelete
  5. so fun - esp banging the milk bottles :D

    ReplyDelete
  6. We had one like you did when I was little. It really was fun. I was able to link about about 9 p.m. EST.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I had a xylophone when I was a kid too! My daughter received one on her first birthday! She loved it! A classic toy!

    ReplyDelete
  8. I still love xylophones :) ! They are just such fun.
    Blessings,
    Catherine :)

    ReplyDelete
  9. I had a xylophone when I was small, it was red wood and metal. I have a xylophone in my musical instruments in my classroom and my students love it! They learn to play music on our xylophone.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I'm so glad that you chose the musical instrument Xylophone as your X-word. Silly me, that I did not even think of it! My daughter Elisabet has a little xylophone that she just loves. I could have taken a picture of her playing it. (I think she has a genuine interest in music.)

    As to your comment about when exactly Mrs. Matlock 'opens the gate' for links on Thursdays, I have a similar problem. There is only a one-hour time-difference between UK-time and Central European time where I live here in Sweden.
    I tried to link my post on Wednesday evening, only to find that it is not open under early Thursday morning, and when I woke up at 8 a.m. there were already 37 sites ahead of me!

    The time that Jenny gives as her opening time, 6:00 PM MST (which means 'Mountain Standard time' in Arizona) on Wednesday evening is GMT minus 7 hours, which means that it is one a.m. Thursday morning in the UK and two a.m. in Sweden where I live. If I sleep late on Thursday morning, I am one of the last to link up!

    Set your alarm-clock to one a.m. Thursday morning and then go back to bed after you have linked up! It will be two a.m. for me!

    Best wishes,
    Anna

    Anna's X-words

    ReplyDelete
  11. I'll leave this message on Anna's, too. Send me your link before you go to bed. I will post it for you when I make it live. I usually do it between 5 and 6 on Wednesday night. I am in Phoenix, AZ so right now we are on US MST time. We never change our times over.

    I am totally happy to do this for any out of country folks!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Now, I'm back for your post!

    I love xylophones. They always take me back to when my kids were small and now to when the Grands were small enough to play with them.

    I still have the same little Fisher Price one from many years ago and it always makes my heart smile when I hear someone plunking away on it!

    Thanks for the such a sweet post!

    It's always wonderful to see you here!

    A+

    ReplyDelete
  13. it is fun to go musical,
    lovely you.
    cute x post.

    ReplyDelete
  14. I enjoyed your xylophone story. I could just picture you parading around the house and hitting everything to hear the sound.

    ReplyDelete
  15. I had one a xylophone as well ... they were so much fun!

    ReplyDelete
  16. I'm falling in line with all the others who are fans of the xylophone. I find that I give xylophones as baby gifts frequently. Love the sound of a little xylophone. Great post! ~ Sarah

    ReplyDelete
  17. I too was in the X class...
    Please drop in when you can.
    My X-Post
    ~Excursion of Xeranthemum~

    A Diva's Hammer Prose

    :) I have to grin with the childhood memories you have brought to light. Ah the percussion instruments were coveted, weren't they? And something so classy about that xylophone...I recall coming home from school and seeing and listening to Lawrence Welk band....ah the gems of orchestra! Always evoking a smile!!! :) :)

    ReplyDelete
  18. I think the xylophone is a child's toy that will never go out of favor. I love that you tried all different things to make sounds. Great post!

    ReplyDelete
  19. I had a xylophone exactly like the one you describe! They were great :)

    Regarding the link up, I obviously have the same problem. I usually manage to post my link when I get up for work on Thursday at 6:20am, but there are always lots on by then. Never mind though. I don't mind being well down the list. When I'm reading, I often start from the bottom and work my way up. I figure that the later links probably get less comments, so I'll start with them first. :)

    ReplyDelete
  20. There's something wonderful about bagging a knobbed stick on a bar and making a tone. My teenage son wants one even now. Fun post.

    ReplyDelete