Jack and Eliza's Piano Duets

Alternate Title: Too Many Videos of the Same Two Pieces


Jack and Eliza started learning their duet pieces at the beginning of the summer.  They initially chose two early-intermediate pieces but it soon became apparent that it would be hard enough for Eliza to learn one of them, so the second one was downgraded to more of a beginner level piece.

Jack was able to learn his (primo) part of William Tell Overture several weeks before the recital and consequently wanted to play it at hyper-speed.  His biggest challenge was playing at a tempo that was doable for Eliza, or not accelerating once he began at a good tempo.  Eliza was still learning her part the week of the recital, but still did a wonderful job of performing and just doing her best.

Clementine was much easier for both of them to learn, and despite the amount of time it took Eliza to learn the more challenging William Tell, she continued to be disappointed that they were playing the simple arrangement of Clementine.  I told her that they could work on the harder one for next year.

In the past, the fall recital has been closer to Christmas, but Sarah (the kids' teacher) decided to bump it up so that it was closer to the date of the ensemble festival the kids would be competing in.  (In years past, the kids would prepare their duets for the November festival, halfway forget about them, then try to resurrect them for the Christmas recital.)  Since the recital fell the weekend before Halloween, she allowed students to wear costumes if they wanted to.

This picture makes me smile because Luke was occupying himself during the recital with about
8 LEGOS.  Jack really wanted to join in the fun, and left the rest of the students who were watching
the recital about halfway through.  Luckily, he and Eliza performed near the beginning.

At the lesson following the recital, the kid were still perfecting their duet pieces in preparation for the ensemble festival.  Sarah patiently worked with them, and managed to get through to Jack to help him keep a steady tempo.  It made a HUGE difference.

The afternoon of Jack and Eliza's judging, I recorded them doing several practice performances.  This one isn't their best performance, but it shows their personalities (Jack smiling and dancing a little bit and playing around, Eliza crossing her eyes a few times) and shows why it's a challenge to get young students to focus enough to perform well together - we tended to have one of both of them fooling around a lot of the time.

But all of those practice performances right before they performed for the judge must have paid off, because they did a great job.

There are some definite faux pas in the video.  Jack got up too quickly after both pieces; he looked around while playing; the judge asked them to wait to begin the second piece until she'd told them she was ready, but they just jumped right in with it anyway; Jack didn't wait for Eliza to bow (she was following Sarah's instructions and waiting to bow until the judge looked up); Luke was with me and he was making some noise.  What you can't see in the video is that we didn't have the music for the judge to refer to (I'd grabbed the wrong books); when Jack walked in he started touching the string basses along the wall and asked the judge about the "cellos," and as soon as they took their bows, Jack asked the judge if they'd be getting their money now.

In spite of all of that, Jack and Eliza were chosen to participate in the winners' recital a few days later.  That meant that instead of taking a few days off of piano, they continued to practice!  Here's a video where you can see their hands while they practiced the day of the recital:

They were only allowed to play one piece in the recital, so they performed William Tell, and they did a great job.  But my favorite things in this video happen before and after they play.

Once all of the winners had performed, everyone was invited to the front to receive their ribbons and prize money.  Jack and Eliza were really excited to win actual money!  (Though I was surprised that the money they received was less than the cost of entering the competition.)

I'm so proud of them and all of their hard work!