Music in Our Lives

Music in Our Lives

Artie's first lesson

Cristián Gutiérrez, a talented and well trained musician, is a wonderful teacher who shares his love of music. Artie is not only learning how to play technically but also how to feel and interpret the music.

At this, his first lesson, he learned the notes (in Spanish), musical notation, and the proper position for sitting to play (at right). His lessons are primarily in Spanish, at the request of Mónica, our Spanish tutor, who made the phone calls to find a teacher for Artie. I enjoy sitting in with them during the lessons, because they are delightful. Cristián also speaks English very well. Early in June of 2000, Artie began to take guitar lessons. He is learning to play in the classical romantic style.

Proper position

Artie and Alejandro Artie still loves playing his banjo, and he has started giving lessons to Alejandro, Mónica's son. Artie has loaned his second banjo to Alejandro.

We are amazed at how quickly Alejandro has been learning. He has made very rapid progress. This is even more amazing when you realize that the 5-string banjo is an instrument primarily used in Bluegrass music in the USA, and is not at all common in Chile.

Artie is a natural teacher, and both he and Alejandro are enjoying the lessons.
Another banjo lesson for Alejandro

Cristián will be going to Europe in 2003 on a scholarship to study medieval music. One day he showed us his Baroque guitar. It was a delight to get to see this beautiful handcrafted instrument and to hear the music of the past played on it.

Cristian playing a song on his Baroque guitar Baroque Guitar closeup

Margy tries to play the Baroque guitar

For Margy, playing is even harder than it looks!

inspiration from Michaelangelo? You can see that Artie's lessons with Cristián are both inspired and practical, with this lesson in changing strings. String changing start

Connecting the new string closeup of connection Artie tries his hand at changing the strings

Margy practicing her song Music is also part of Margy's life. She is busily trying to learn songs for children in Spanish as part of her language studies. These songs will be useful when she starts baby cuddling again. She thoroughly enjoyed cuddling babies at the Special Care Nursery at the Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas, and she wants to be ready to cuddle them here in the language they will be trying to learn. In Dallas she had found it much harder to learn new songs than when she was in school, and it takes even longer to learn them in Spanish!

In 2002, Margy expanded her musical involvement, by taking up the guitar. To learn more about this, see Margy's Guitar and Guitar Arrival.

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Music in Our Lives
Cristián Gutiérrez, a talented and well trained musician, is a wonderful teacher who shares his love of music. Artie is not only learning how to play technically but also how to feel and interpret the music. At this, his first lesson, he learned the notes (in Spanish), musical notation, and the proper position for sitting to play (at right). His lessons are primarily in Spanish, at the request of Mónica, our Spanish tutor, who made the phone calls to find a teacher for Artie. I enjoy sitting in with them during the lessons, because they are delightful. Cristián also speaks English very well.		Early in June of 2000, Artie began to take guitar lessons. He is learning to play in the classical romantic style.

Cristián will be going to Europe in 2003 on a scholarship to study medieval music. One day he showed us his Baroque guitar. It was a delight to get to see this beautiful handcrafted instrument and to hear the music of the past played on it.


For Margy, playing is even harder than it looks!