Piano

Cat had her first piano recital in June and we were all so excited about it! She has been working so hard practicing piano since she started her lessons in January. Her teacher is very demanding and expects a lot of her students. Cat began doing technique and theory exercises right away and she's learning pieces from a standard piano book as well as Suzuki.

Cat with her teacher, Sarah, and her daughter after the recital.

I have to sit through her practice sessions with her every day, which has been tough. It's tough for me to find the time; tough to try to keep Jack and Eliza happy while I'm working with Cat; tough to get Cat to focus and get her practicing done so that we can move on with our day, when she would rather be playing outside with the neighbors. I can definitely see the value in practicing with her, though. I know she is practicing much more effectively with me than she would on her own. And hopefully she is learning how to practice well.

All of this can be kind of intense for us, though. We had more than one 2-hour practice session since January because Cat simply didn't want to practice, or didn't want to practice correctly. She told me many, many times that she wanted to quit. I tried to explain that piano is a requirement for our family, and that I wouldn't force her to practice. But she would lose certain privileges if she didn't practice.

I have a good friend who taught Cat piano briefly before we moved away from Georgia. She and I emailed back and forth several times this spring discussing the puspose piano should serve in a child's life and how to go about achieving that purpose. She said that she wants each student to have a positive experience with piano and develop his or her own passion for music without it being forced on the student. I love that idea! But for Cat, I feel like I need to be more structured and demanding. Unfortunately for her, she's very smart, so school comes very easily to her, and she's never had to work very hard to do well in school. The same is true for the few extra-curricular activities she's been involved in. And she is quite comfortable in a variety of social situations as well. And we don't have a farm where she has to do a lot of manual labor on a daily basis. So I like that piano provides an opportunity for Cat to work, to extend herself, to try something she would otherwise avoid. AND to see relatively quick results. She loves performing for her peers and for our adult friends when they come over. She's been teaching Jack and Eliza some of the things she's learned. And once she masters a piece, she plays it over and over again. Yes, I would say that as much as Cat claims to want to quit piano at practice time, she is really enjoying the fact that she has developed this talent over the last several months.

The little performer.

Cat performed two pieces at her recital, both from her Suzuki book. She played Mary Had a Little Lamb and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (theme and variations) in Bb. Ben was on track to be about 10 minutes early for the recital, but ran into a marathon on the way there, so he barely made it on time, and Cat was the first performer. I wasn't there to help him out because I was at my cousin's sealing (I was so sad to miss the recutal!!) so by the time he got Jack and Eliza settled and had the camera ready, he'd missed the first minute or two of her performance. But you can see the rest below.

We are so proud of Cat and all that she's learned this year. I really can hardly believe how far she's come. I hope she continues to work hard on this, even when she doesn't want to.

Yeah for Cat!