I’m so happy about where today’s classes went, because they highlighted the most important musical instrument we have: our ears. In the first hour, one participant started out quite shy and didn’t want to talk much, so we played some musical call and response games, and that got her in the spirit. We did some mindful listening with the ting sha bells, and soon she was feeling social enough to sing Solfege with me, which we then took to the piano. During the second hour we also did some mindful listening and rhythm practice, and at the end we focused on one of the students’ favourite songs from the previous week: POV by Ariana Grande. We all listened to the song, focusing for elements in the music and instrumentation that jumped out at us. It was great to hear what the students are listening for, and we all agreed (staff included) that we were all able to hear so much more out of the song when we took the time to just use our ears. This will definitely be an exercise to repeat.