Topsey

Topsey thought to himself, “My students are all good singers, because I’ve heard them singing hip hop songs for Tivy to dance to. They can use their flippers to play musical instruments. But what about Tivy? Hmmmmmmm.” Topsey decided he would think about this until tomorrow. Topsey told his students about his plans. He wanted them to learn to play several songs during the celebration.

He told Tivy, “Don’t worry. I have something special planned for you.”

The other four students said, “But Topsey! We don’t know how to play any musical instruments! How are we going to play music?”

Topsey said, “That’s what we’re going to learn.”

The next day, Topsey and his students went out into the ocean and searched the ocean floor for interesting things that might help them make musical instruments. They gathered many shells and took them back to the cave. Topsey and Tivy were especially looking for metal objects. They made several trips and gathered items, taking them back to the cave. Then they looked at what they had found. The four older students had found many beautiful shells, but a lot of them would not be useful in making musical instruments. They separated the shells into one pile and kept things that looked interesting in another pile.

Topsey said, “The shells that are beautiful we will keep for something special. The shells that are not useful at all, we will take them back to the ocean. You can take them on your way home, because that’s all for today.”

The next day, Topsey said, “Today we will look for more shells, and let’s look for ones that are flat and round and have a hole in the middle.” He said, “I have an idea.”

They all set off on another field trip, looking for special items for their music band. They all brought back a big pile of things, and again, they sorted through them and picked out the ones that might be useful.

Topsey said, “That’s all for today.”

The next day, Topsey asked Waxie, Maxie, Cheryl, and Beryl to find two long sticks and place them on two large rocks, side by side like railroad tracks. Then he told them to put the wind shells on top of the sticks. He told them they could blow across the shells to make a musical sound. They tried this, but they didn’t hear anything.

Topsey said, “You will have to blow a little harder.”

This time, Cheryl blew so hard that the shell went flying off into the water! Cheryl ran and got her shell and placed it back on the sticks. Tivy said, “Why don’t you glue them with some JellyJel?”

And they did. Then they practiced for a little while until they got a nice sound. They were delighted to find they could make pretty sounds with the wind shells. Sometimes when they all blew together, it made just a noise and not a pretty sound.

Topsey said, “Try to find shells that sound nice together, so they will all make harmony.”

They practiced this for a while and found two sets of shells that made harmony. So, then they had two different sets of wind shells that made harmony. Beryl had found a large conch shell that made a beautiful, low sound. She played the conch shell when the other turtles blew the wind shells, and it was beautiful! Topsey asked Tivy to get his paint brush and make a mark on the four shells that sounded nice together.

The next day, the five students all gathered and talked about what songs they would like to practice for the celebration. Of course, Tivy wanted a hip hop song, or maybe two, so he could dance while the band played. Topsey said that was perfectly fine.

Then he said, “We also need music for the different acts. Mermaid has let us know that her group will be performing a sea ballet. We will need beautiful music for the mermaids to dance to. and there are other acts that will need their own music, also.”