Piano Update (with lots of videos for the Grandparents)

Because our piano teacher was getting ready to have a baby and would take some maternity leave, and because we were all kind of burned out after last spring, and in an effort to save some money, we decided to took a hiatus from piano lessons for about four months.  We continued to practice, and our teacher even had us send in videos of the kids playing the pieces they were ready to pass off, so it wasn't a complete break, but we definitely slowed our pace and decreased our stress level, which was nice.  There was plenty of this over the summer:

And because of our teacher's requirement that we send in videos, I have videos of the kids playing pieces that have never been performed in a recital or competition.  Here are a few:

One thing I began doing over the summer was implementing a mandatory Creative Piano Time for Jack and Eliza.  They often had a hard time focusing on their required pieces/exercises when I practiced with them and wanted to do things like count all of the keys on the keyboard or play one of the pieces they recently learned at warp speed.  So they would have to sit down at the piano and play - whatever they wanted - for a while before I would practice with them.  This helped to get the piano-wiggles out, so to speak, and we were able to practice better.  If they ever did get off-task, I could remind them that what they were doing would be fine during Creative Piano Time but not during practice time.  I laughed when I found Jack reading a book during his CPT.  He's not the first kid to attempt to read and play piano at the first time, but it struck me as funny anyway.

We resumed lessons about a month after school started and were mostly focused on a duet festival happening at the beginning of November.  They had all started working on their pieces over the summer, which means that they'd spent months working on this music.

Cat and her partner practiced together a few times and performed for friends/neighbors/family members about 20 times - their teacher recommends at least 10 practice performances before a recital/competition so they definitely went above and beyond.  They were rewarded for their hard work by being chosen as winners in their age division.  They participated in a winners' recital last week and received a ribbon and a cash prize.  It really does pay to practice!  Their pieces were "Rondino" by Jon George and an arrangement of "The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" by Tchaikovsky.  They chose to perform Rondino in the winners' recital.

Right after their judging time, which was in
a recital hall in the back of this music store.

Winners' Recital

Jack and Eliza's pieces were both hard for their ability levels.  They played Beethoven's Minuet in G (of "Music Man" fame, but they didn't use the think method, I promise you!) and Turkey in the Straw.  Jack was able to learn his parts with confidence but Eliza really struggled with the Minuet.  It was definitely harder than she was ready to play, but I wonder if she would have gotten a better handle on it if we'd worked harder on it over the summer.  As it is, she learned pretty much every note of both pieces by rote, which was tedious and exhausting, but ultimately successful.  As of this writing, they still aren't completely solid on the Minuet, but they'll keep working on it and perform it at the Christmas recital, so hopefully I'll have a better recording then.  I'm including it in the videos below, though, so you can see how challenging the parts are, especially for Eliza, who got stuck with the secondo part on that piece.  Jack and Eliza were not chosen as winners, but I'm really proud of them for working hard to learn challenging music and giving the competition their best.  I also loved that they were partners because it made it easy to coordinate practice time, even if it was a challenge to get them to be serious a lot of the time.  I also like that they can play their pieces together whenever they want to.  It works out.

With Sarah, our piano teacher, right before being judged.

This is one of our very favorite videos because of what happens in the last 10 seconds.
I was filming them and motioning for them to scoot over because Eliza was in such bright
sunlight from the window, and we love how they both look at me and take a step over
at the exact same time.  It cracks us up every time.

The silliness was the biggest challenge of getting them to practice together.

Once they focused and practiced, they did pretty well, but getting them to

that point was tough most days.

And on a related note, Cat started organ lessons with a friend in our ward this weekend.  She LOVED it and is so excited to get started!  We're going to go at a much slower pace with organ, as our time is getting pretty maxed out, but I'm glad she has the opportunity to eat least learn some technique and that she's enjoying it.  We'll see where it goes.