Sounds and Instruments for Kids

Seven episodes for children aged 6 to 8, hosted by Lupe, a little dog with dog ears who hears everything. The course is built on one secret that works for every sound in the world: every sound is something shaking, and the air carries that shaking to your ear, from layer to layer like a line of dominoes, until it reaches the eardrum. From there it climbs a ladder of six steps, and the steps are not instruments or materials but gestures the child can try at the kitchen table: hitting, blowing into wood, blowing into metal, plucking a string, rubbing a bow, and singing. Hitting brings the stretched drum skin and the rule that returns everywhere afterwards, that a big thing sounds low and a small thing sounds high. Blowing brings the tube that decides the note, the finger that makes it longer by covering a hole, and the surprise of the brass family, where the thing that shakes is not the instrument but the player's lips. The strings bring three rules at once, the hollow box that grows a whisper into a sound, and the horse hair with rosin that makes a violin note last as long as the arm moves. It ends with the voice, two little folds of skin in your neck, the riddle of why a piano with strings inside is really percussion, and the whole orchestra sitting down in its proper order.