The Sound of Sparkles

We found the sound of sparkles in an unlikely place. My daughter had found a "Dance Party Mix" CD at the library and at the end of the first song was super duper excited to finally know what sparkles sound like. They sound like beautiful chimes.

Immediately she wanted to learn how to play sparkles. We tried to find a "sparkle" sound on our keyboard/synthesizer to no avail. So I got online and started looking for a great-sounding set of chimes and I'm pleased to say I found one.

The Treeworks Chimes handheld chimes are a real instrument (as opposed to kid-instruments that often lack in sound quality) and have a really beautiful sound. They are made in the USA and arrive in a beautiful box, complete with the name of the person who helped finish the piece. They were carefully packaged and it was a wonderful experience to pull them from the tube and hear them sparkle for the first time....and every time after that, too.

My children play their beautiful chimes every day. The sparkles are the sound of a rainbow, of a child turning magically into a creature, or any other number of magical moments of their pretend play. I highly recommend adding them to your stash of musical instruments for the sound alone!

But there is also an added bonus of preschool STEM to be learned from this instrument. Just looking at the instrument we can observe and discuss size (a fundamental preschool science and maths topic). We can also observe patterns in movement when we touch and move the dangling cylinders, watching and talking about how each piece moves as well as how they move together. And don't forget the observing with our ears. The pattern of sound changes depending on if you drag fingers from smallest to biggest, from biggest to smallest, from outsides in or from inside out. Paying attention to patterns of motion and sound is not just good music learning; it is good science learning, too.

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If you're not in Tennessee where you might find them in a local store, then you can buy them on Amazon.