Today daughter and I were playing in the music room. She is almost 15 months old.

First we played with my mountain dulcimer — made from a kit when I was a camp counselor; not very good, but good enough. She knows she is not allowed to touch the tuning pegs. What she likes to do is put her fingers or palms on the strings on the fretboard; she moves her hands around the fretboard, like I do, as if she, too, wants to make different notes on the melody string. Occasionally she tries to strum or pluck, and sometimes hurts her fingers. I showed her how to hold a pick to strum, and she thought that was pretty fun, too.

Then she picked up my soprano recorder (a plastic Yamaha; very nice but also nicely undelicate). Just put the mouthpiece in her mouth and blew, and was delighted to make a pretty sound.

She asked me to play my hammered dulcimer — at least that’s my interpretation of “pway” and pointing. Her attention span for it is very limited, though — maybe once or twice through one tune.

Her own musical toys include some homemade shakers (papier mache over toilet paper tubes and soapboxes), a combination xylophone / piano, a big jingle bell on a necklace, a cowbell from my brother’s trip to Switzerland, and a plastic drum with little beads inside.