Today’s Excerpt:

Sentence stem: “One memory I have with music is…”

Here is a memory from Mr. Rogers about the power of music:

The television host Mr. Rogers would sometimes tell stories about getting bullied as a kid — how other kids made fun of his weight, his asthma, and other things.

He says that playing music was something he could do to work through his feelings of pain. “I was always able to cry or laugh or say I was angry through the tips of my fingers on the piano,” he once said. “I would go to the piano even when I was five years old and start to play how I felt.”

Elsewhere he said, “Music is the one art we all have inside. We may not be able to play an instrument, but we can sing along or clap or tap our feet. Have you ever seen a baby bouncing up and down in the crib in time to some music? When you think of it, some of that baby’s first messages from his or her parents may have been lullabies, or at least the music of their speaking voices. All of us have had the experience of hearing a tune from childhood and having that melody evoke a memory or a feeling.”