When I was a student teacher on my PGCE course, I was told by my mentor-teacher, after performing something on the flute to the children, "When you are a teacher, make sure you play your flute to the children. It's something that will amaze them and they will love it."
I took that on. And I thought I did play my flute to the children regularly. In KS1 singing assembly, I would play my flute and other instruments to the children as they were coming into assembly. In a few KS2 singing assemblies, I would play my flute to the children. I was never sure how impressed they were ...or not. In a few year 4,5,6 lessons, I would play my flute. But, this week, I ended up playing my flute to years 5 and 6 as part of their lessons. In Year 6, I was trying to demonstrate the Harmonic series as part of a lesson on Fanfares- I wanted to prove to them why fanfares are so often based on broken chords. So I performed The Last Post on my flute just using overblown harmonics on the Fundamental- Low C. (essentially, I don't move my fingers to change the pitch- just adjust my embouchure- mouth position). Similarly in my Year 4 lesson, I wanted to demonstrate Benjamin Britten's main theme from The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (AKA Henry Purcell's Rondo from Abdelazer) and then how to create a variation based on the musical motifs. At the moment I first took my flute out of my case and put it together, there were gasps and excited noises and then rapt applause from the class (and "Can you teach me how to do that?!" from my year 6 boy who is a good flute player). And I realised- yes, it's all very well playing to them in Assembly occasionally. But allowing them to be up close and see the instrument and hear it in a small intimate setting- well actually, it is a big deal for them! And it gave me a lovely warm tingle to see their appreciation. I should play the piano/keyboard less to them and play other instruments more.
Never underestimate the power of sharing something you love, a skill that you have, with children or people- we don't realise that actually, it is something precious and exciting for them.