Kidbits and Updates

Each is not a whole post, but together it's a lot of catching up:

• Last week, Sis and I went to a compass class with some of our GS friends.  And it was taught by a friend we had made at Hog Island last year!  So great to see her again.  I learned so much. I did not know how to read a compass.  Hold the compass flat in your hand, with the curved part at your wrist and the printed red "travel arrow" pointing out from your palm.  "Turn on the compass"--I know, it's not electronic--means to put the "red in the shed," i.e. move the "compass housing" so that the red part of the needle that always faces magnetic north moves into the outlined arrow or orienting lines/arrow.  Now you can tell what direction you are pointing by whatever direction and degree lines up with the travel arrow.  You reverse it to go in a particular direction.  Want to go Northwest?  Move the compass housing to put NW at the end of the travel arrow, move yourself to put the "red in the shed", and walk in the direction of the arrow.  At least I think that's right.  Sis was much better than I was.  I know there is so much more to orienteering but it was a great start.  I'll practice at Hog Island again this summer.
• We went to three orchestra concerts last week, one for our school and two where the kids from our orchestra were invited to play at other concerts to help round out the sound.  They played "Vida La Viva," a bit from "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik," "Shadows," and . . . something else.  I love hearing my kids play . . . and it was even bittersweet to hear the little ones play "Hot Cross Buns."  Sis and Bud have come a long way.  And they'll both be playing in the orchestra again next year.
• Piano duet.  Yep, Bud and I are finally playing a piano duet.  I had stopped taking piano during CPE but am starting up again for the summer.  And so we actually did some planning during Monday's lesson.  I'm dusting off "Finlandia" and "The Entertainer" (both easy piano) and then learning my part of "Vida La Viva."  Yes, the Coldplay song.  Just like Bud played in orchestra.  I know it.  He likes it.  And one of the parts is just my speed.  Only challenge is that I don't really count when I play, just play by ear to the tune I know, which makes it almost impossible to play in the right spot with a duet partner so I'm practicing counting.  Whew.  But the playing has rejuvenated Bud, who spent last night playing "Phantom of the Opera," "Prince Sidon," and other songs.  One of my favorite sounds in the world.
• Bud has had a few kung fu performance in the last few weeks, which is not our usual performance time (May and October are the big competition times; January/February are the big Lunar New Year performance times.)  He performed at Quassy Amusement Park, a small, old local park with rides and games next to a lake.  The performance went well, but the team had even more fun wandering around together and going on all the rides--swings, tilt-a-whirl, this big boat that swings like a pendulum, tea cups, another ride that flips and holds you upside down.  I enjoyed the lovely weather and riding the carousel.  Oh how I love a carousel!  Bud even rode with me towards the end of the day. 
• And he earned his Black Belt right before we left for Italy.  The school hadn't been doing belts for the team (it's more of a karate thing than a kung fu thing anyway) and so their Master gave the team the chance to earn their belts.  Bud practiced for weeks, on top of his years of kung fu, and he earned the black belt, embroidered with his school, and a beautiful plaque to go with it.  We're so proud of him!
• INDIGO GIRLS!  Last week, we all went to hear the Girls in concert in New London.  We arrived early enough for dinner (mac and cheese pizza, chix and broccoli and bacon pizza, pasta pomodoro, great salad and yummy cakes) at this great local pizza place, Two Wives--and the only men in the building were Bud and those on the staff!  Everyone was there for the concert, which always draws about 95% women.  Most of them were our age or older--and not even all of them were dykes!  Of the five others I knew there that night, only 2 were lesbians.  But they were moms of twins, just like us.  Gotta introduce the kiddos to the culture, you know?  It was great--they played most of our favorites.  We got home really late, but we didn't care.  Besides, it was Mother's Day weekend and there's not much these two moms like more than a Girls concert.
  
• Mama and I gave ourselves our big Mother's Day present:  we went to the Met museum all by ourselves, leaving the kids at home on Saturday.  I had wanted to see the Thomas Cole exhibition and it was closing on Sunday, but the kids didn't want to go.  And after three orchestra concerts, the Indigo Girls, the compass class, and a kung fu show, we decided they would probably enjoy a day at home much more . . . and we might enjoy the moms' night out all by ourselves.  And we did!  There was some traffic heading into the city on Saturday afternoon, but we talked all the way there.  The Cole show had some great pieces--Course of Empire, Oxbow River, a little trompe l'oeil with an oil sketch of a landscape, a view of Florence in front of which I no longer needed to say "I'd love to take you to Italy!"  There were also paintings by Claude Lorraine, de Loutherbourg, Turner, Constable, including cloud studies and Hadleigh Castle.  The concept of the show--Cole was influenced by European art and travels--was nothing new, but it was pretty.  We also liked the parallel show about Americans in Italy--with sketches and drawings and watercolors by Sargent, Elihu Vedder, and Maurice Prendergast.  We especially liked the Venetian views.  We enjoyed a ham sandwich on a baguette, rich chocolate cupcake, and a cup of coffee in the American courtyard, treating this trip into the city like we did Italy by taking it easy and enjoying ourselves, slowly.  The last show on our list was the French gardens show, tracing the rise of public gardens and private gardening as a hobby after the Revolution and through the 19th century.  There were still lifes by Fantin-Latour, Odilon Redon, Mary Cassatt--I loved her lilacs--and Caillebotte's chrysanthemums.  There were also many women-in-the-garden scenes by Manet, Monet, Renoir, Cassatt, and Morisot, though little discussion of the trope.  There were watering cans, hand rakes and trowels, and maps of gardens, including a great panorama postcard of the Tuileries with all these wonderful snippets of people.  It was a lovely show.  I think I might be getting excited about going back to Paris someday, with the kids, once they've had more French.  As we perused the shop--I got the gardens catalogue but not the Cole (I have the one from the very-similar Wadsworth show I saw when I came back to NYC in fall 1994 to see Glenn Close in Sunset Boulevard--when I stayed with Mama in her dorm, actually.  Full circle.)--I saw mention of a Visitors to Versailles show and so Mama and I trekked up to it.  Great 18th-century court costumes, dec arts, and even a room devoted to an early 18th-century visit by Siamese ambassadors from the court of Ayyuthaya who brought gifts and wore special hats. Yep, Thailand.  Circle again.  We absolutely skipped the Heavenly Creatures and the Catholic Imagination show; well, sort of.  It was spread out through the Medieval court on the first floor so we passed by the overdone fashions and big crowds on our way to other exhibitions.  It was a dramatic place to stage the show, with all the Catholic art of the Middle Ages, but I am completely uninterested in modern fashion. Give me those 18th-century court gowns any day.
• We saw Avengers: Infinity War.  Loved it.  It's past the point where I worry about spoilers; by now the details are well known.  Of course, it's the deaths that got everyone.  And we all seem to have the idea that most won't stick.  But I'm guessing they'll surprise us--it's too easy if Scarlet Witch somehow breaks the Soul Stone from the inside or Cap sacrifices himself for Bucky (and them all) and switches places with everyone in the Soul Stone.  I don't think he'll survive the next one, Cap.  And I think Black Panther, sweet Spidey, and all of those who disintegrated will be back. Doctor Strange knows exactly how it will all pan out.  No resurrection for mischievous Loki, though.  He was one of my favorites.  And I think Gamorrah will get, who I think entered the Stone as Thanos's sacrifice, will get out, too.  And all of that in time for the new Guardians, Spiderman, and Black Panther movies!
• Sis got her braces off!  She was so excited that she took a bag of popcorn with her to the appointment and had been planning her candy consumption for months.  Mama brought her a bag of jelly beans, gummy bears, Star Bursts, Carmellos, jar of caramel sauce, two bags of popcorn from Trader Joe's, and I don't know what else.  She now has a clear retainer.  And says her mouth is "soft!"  Bud will get his braces in a month (he lost his lost baby teeth later than she did)--I teased the orthodontist that he could just recycle the brackets and give us a discount. 
• CPE is wrapping up.  I have 62 hours left, a final evaluation paper (already at 10 pages), and three more essays.  Whew.  I witnessed a funny moment last week.  The priest startled a sleeping patient who then tried to get out of bed.  I fetched a nurse.  The patient kept saying, "I need to get to my business." (You could tell he meant work.)  The nurse said, "You can do your business here in bed."  "It isn't funny business!" he replied.  We all started to giggle.  The nurse said, "I can't believe you said that in front of the priest!"  The priest was laughing harder than all of us.  More on CPE later.  It's my day off!  Which means some Zentangle, crocheting, blogging, and watching reruns of "Arrow."

Music All Around

Between my vocal practices, the kids trying out for the school musical, and piano lessons, there is a lot of music in the house these days.

Every morning, I do my vocal exercises from the Natural Singer workshop with Claude Stein at Kripalu.  While I remember most of the techniques, I did sign up for the online lessons; I receive a new video or audio file each week for a year.  So there are a lot of "mmmm" and "ahh" and "nyawn" around here.  And more actual singing, too.  (Learn more about Stein and his workshops here.)  I haven't been to the musical Taize service recently, but I love the singing meditations we do.

Auditions for the school musical were last week.  Both kids tried out; neither wanted us to hear their practice song.  I was even helping out at auditions but didn't really hear them.  Sis sang Cohen's "Hallelujah," which they'd sung at the marvelous school music concert a few weeks ago.  Bud did "My Shot" from Hamilton.  The director said we should YouTube it and send it to Miranda, which was kind to say.  But Bud does remember a lot of lyrics and performs with gusto.  And both kids will be in the musical, though Sis just wants a background part.  Bud goes for callbacks today; he'd like something a little more.  And he moves well.  We'll see.  A little speaking part would thrill him.  From here, we have about four months of weekly rehearsals.  So, lots of music, lots of the time.

Bud and I still take piano, though Sis decided not to this year.  He's been playing "Memory" from Cats and "Winter Wind" by the Piano Guys, a long, lovely, and complicated piece.  I think the Cats song brings out his melancholy about dear Mo and Mr. P, who died a year ago.  He plays, is reflective for a bit, and then perks right up.  I'm practicing "The Entertainer" and it's coming along slowly; I'm also trying to put my favorite "Finlandia" into memory--that goes even more slowly, though I've been playing it for two years.

Sis has been focused on her violin, which she plays in her room.  As I mentioned, there was a concert a few weeks back, both choral and strings.  Sis is in the first violin group and Bud is one of the only cellos, both in the advanced (5th & 6th grades) orchestra.  They both plan to continue playing in junior high but are not sure if they will still be serious in high school.  See, only one high school in town has strings, so their interest becomes more broadly important.  Well, if we even still have public schools by then, with public-school enemy #1, DeVos, as Secretary of Education.

And we all like listening to music on our Sonos, a digital device which handles our music library.  I can call up any song we own while seated on the couch and choose where in the house to play it and how loud, creating my own playlists.  It's fantastic!  Hamilton has long been in the queue, sometimes current pop songs.  And I have been listening to the medieval chants of Hildegard von Bingen.  No doubt we'll put Sunset Boulevard into rotation soon.  We have tickets to see Glenn Close in a few weeks.

Then, who knows what, but you can bet there will still be song here.

Music to My Ears

Sunday was our piano recital--and it went beautifully!

Bud went first, playing "Maple Leaf Rag" and a rustic dance without any sheet music!  And I don't think he missed a note.  I love watching him play.

Then Sis went, playing my favorite "Cups" song and something called Rockin' 6.  I think it was the best I've heard her play them.  Really well done.

And then it was my turn.  "Greensleeves."  Ugh.  I missed a note in the first several bars but recovered without making a sound or a face . . . and I finished playing the whole thing, perfectly (for me) even though my hands began to shake almost uncontrollably, just like last time.  But I kept them moving and finished the song.  I almost cheered for myself!  Whew.

And I won't ever do that again.  My first recital was an experiment; this last one was a kind of redemption since I didn't feel like the first one went as smoothly as I'd hoped.  So I accomplished what I set out to do.  Let the recital be for the kiddos.  I'll still take lessons--love them!--but I don't need to perform again.  Makes me too anxious.  And I've discovered, since Sunday, that I now play the song even better without the nerves of thinking of the recital--and I have memorized it!  I now have a nice song I can play anytime, anywhere, without the music.  Yay!  This was one of my major goals of piano lessons.

But back to Sunday.  Because it had gone so well for all of us, I was able to sit back and enjoy the rest of the pianists.  They really are a talented bunch.  And we all have a great teacher.

Both of which we celebrated with sweets afterwards.

Piano Forte

My piano lessons are picking up in intensity now that we're back on a more regular schedule  . . . and I can practice more with the kids gone during the day.  When they're here, there's usually something to do besides piano; my practice flagged over the summer.  But now, I have nine clear months to practice and improve.

I'm almost at the end of my adult piano book(Adult All-in-One-Course), but we've also branched out to its companion volume (Alfred's Adult Piano Course:  All-Time Favorites) with longer songs and no theory.  "Finlandia," "Hungarian Rhapsody," and now "In the Good Ol' Summertime" are all from that book.

We had done some chord chart reading, if I've got that right--it's just the chords, no melody--often figured out by enthusiasts and posted online but not really officially published.  I've tried a few of these without too much success, though I was getting the hang of the Indigo Girls' "Language of the Kiss."  I might try "Touch the Sky" from Brave and "The Skye Boat Song" from Outlander next.

Also on my list to try sooner rather than later:  "Hedwig's Theme" from Harry Potter and "Concerning Hobbits" from LOTR, both of which the kids have played.  Plus "Amazing Grace" and "Simple Gifts."

So, it's an exciting piano time for me.

Though, honestly, I don't really know if I'm going to play in the recital.  Yes, I did it in the spring, just a month after surgery--what could be harder than that?--but I don't really have a piece ready and I don't really know if I have a handle on how not to be nervous and shake so much.  Let's just say I'm leaving my options open, which is just fine with my piano teacher.  I have almost two months to decide . . . and to get a piece ready.

The kids, of course, could be ready now!

Hey Ho

Undeterred by my nerves at my piano recital, I'm still taking lessons.  And learning a new skill!  Up to now, I've been reading music, your typical piano sheet music with treble and bass clefs.  I have dabbled with fake books, where they give you the melodies and the chords are noted above.  Now I'm learning the opposite--I have a chord sheet for "Ho Hey" by the Lumineers, so that I play the chords and either sing or pick out the melody on my own.  It'll help me learn my chords well, especially having to invert them.  I don't really have an ear to pick out the melody myself so we'll have to see what happens.  But I'm excited about the challenge.

Especially because the next recital is almost seven months away and I won't be playing and singing!

Practicing to Fail

Perhaps I should say "practicing to falter."

I had one of the most interesting piano lessons yesterday.  As you know, my very first piano recital is on Sunday.  After seven months of lessons, having not been able to read much music or play more than "Good King Wenceslas" (the easy version) when I began in September, I had said I would play at the spring recital alongside all of the kiddos; I've been practicing my piece, "Finlandia," for three months.  And then, well, emergency.

I have debated whether I could play since having my surgery.  Everyone, family and piano teacher included, is encouraging and understanding--play if you can, don't if you can't, but don't stress about it.  I've practiced the transitions where I move my hands so that they are smoother; I've practiced the timing because sometimes my count is just a bit off.  I've even practiced in front of people--the kids, Mama, Gommie in-laws, friends--so I get used to playing for others. Some days, I get through my song just fine; other days, I hit so many wrong notes.  Pain and narcotics usage definitely has an effect.

So yesterday, my teacher and I practiced how to mess up.  No faces, no squeals, no waving my hands in frustration.  Play through.  Pretend you didn't mess up.  Slow down if it's a part that troubles you (or speed up right through it!)  If it's an egregious mistake (several wrong notes in a row), start the phrase over.  If it's the first few notes, start the whole song over.  She says that everyone messes up, that oftentimes only the players notice.  It's a very forgiving audience.

And you know what?  Recognizing that I knew how to fix a mistake--acknowledging that I was going to make a mistake and should therefore not aim for perfect (which, my teacher called a "crapshoot!")--freed up my playing immensely and I made fewer mistakes!  Some of the paralysis left.

So, for now, I'm definitely playing "Finlandia" on Sunday, mistakes and all.


(Because I know people like an update, yesterday was really good.  I stayed on top of my pain meds and had a good, useful, relaxing day.  I have follow-ups with cardiologist on Thurs and surgeon on Friday.  Expecting it all to be fine.)

Practice, Practice, Practice

The strains of "Finlandia" are now a constant in the house.  Because I'm going to be in a piano recital!  On Tuesday, we started the song (one of my favorites), the next one in my book, and my teacher said, "This would be a perfect piece for the recital in April."

I've never played in a recital, a childhood rite-of-passage for so many.  Mine will be in my fifth decade!  The kids are very supportive and excited for me.  When I said I was thinking about it, they chorused, "You have to!  Play, Mom, play!"

Who can say no to that audience?

Watch This!

This is what we went to see tonight, an early Christmas present--the Piano Guys, yes, with one who plays a cello.  Watch a few videos and I'll tell you all about it later.  If you only watch one, do the third one.  We all had a great time and were inspired to practice and play our instruments.

Music Mystery

My piano lessons are going swimmingly.  I'm playing several fun ditties--"Cuckoo Clock," "Beautiful Brown Eyes," and "Alpine" something-or-other, from my Adult All-in-One Piano book.  And I've added several Christmas carols to the mix--"Jingle Bells," "Joy to the World," "Jolly Old St Nicholas," "O Christmas Tree," and "Deck the Halls."

But occasionally my mind wanders back to music I played 20+ years ago the first time I took piano lessons, for two or so months, after college (I think it was.)   They weren't great lessons; he was a young and unchallenging teacher, not really stressing that I learn to count or keep time.  But we rushed through all the major keys and I photocopied lots of songs I liked.  There were a few that stuck with me--"Musette" by Bach, a piece called "The Knight and the Lady," and this other piece, which sheet music I had lost (which I swore had a picture of a castle on it.)  I could sort of remember the tune, but not enough to play it, mainly because I don't play that well and I don't easily parse music into notes.

I looked in our books and online and finally realized that the book the music was in was John Thompson Modern Piano Course, which also had the aforementioned "The Knight and Lady.".  And when I showed Mama the cover on Amazon, she said she had  used that book as a child!  Which of course meant she still had it; I found it in a minute, down with the other piano books in the basement bookcase.  I flipped through it hurriedly, passing "The Knight and the Lady" but not finding the piece with the castle I remembered (there was a castle drawing, on another song.  See I'm more visual than auditory.)

I remembered that it might have been in one of the old costume dramas that I love, something based on Jane Austen . . . was it perhaps a minuet?  Did Margaret Dashwood play it?  Did Lizzie Bennet, only tolerably?  No searches yielded much help.  (But I liked this.)

So I went to the piano and began to fiddle with it.  Amazingly, I seemed to catch the cadence and soon had an idea of how it went, maybe even remembering playing it.  Mama wrote the notes down as I called them out, really simply:  e f e g g,  d e d f f, c c d d e, g f e d.  It sounded real, better than I could have made up in my head for sure, but she didn't recognize it.  And so I let it slide.

Until we came upstairs and I googled, "how to search for sheet music by notes" and came up with Musicpedia, which has a "Name that Tune" search.  I typed in my song with the notes Mama wrote down and kept trying to search.  And odd songs were coming up in the search results.  But I had all half notes.  And that isn't really what they are.  So I tried to guess when they were quarters and half and such, to make it sound like a melody--amazingly, the website let's you play what you come up with so I could tweak it.  But it took a long time to make it sound as close as I could recall.
 
And about an hour into this effort of tweaking and adjusting, it came up with this:

Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus: piano sonata No. 11 in A K331, 1st movement
 

I was off two notes and in the wrong key, but it looked promising.  But my computer wouldn't play the melody from Musicpedia, so I found Mozart's sonata on YouTube:

That's THE SONG!!!!!

And guess what?  It is in the Thompson book!  Called "Air by Mozart," only there's not a picture of a castle.  (I guess my visual memory failed me where my auditory one didn't.)

But it is on the page opposite "The Knight and the Lady."

Talk about an earworm.

But I'm just absolutely astonished that a.) I could figure out the tune well enough to search for it (yay for my piano lessons!) and b.) that the computer could make sense of what I typed.  Isn't the internet amazing??

Our Austen Evening

On Sunday afternoon, our piano club, newly christened a "piano society," met at a friend's house. For a few hours on that chilly, windy afternoon, we sat inside listening to our children of all levels play a variety of piano pieces--popular ("Let it Go," "Walking on Sunshine," "Red and Black," "Secrets," Coldplay), classical (two different "Carol of the Bells), folk ("Old Susannah"), jazz.  And all I could think of was Jane Austen. That somehow in that afternoon twilight of the first day of the time change, when the day ends before you're ready, I was transported to another era when people sat around playing and listening to music.  (It helped that there was a lovely antique cross stitch in black silhouette of a woman playing piano.) Sure, we were recording some of it with our digital phones and the pieces were not Regency, but no one was surfing online, no kids were playing video games, there was no tv on.  All the music was real and live, not MP3.  And I was so grateful that we had come together to give each other this gift.  So I even did my part and played mediocre renditions of "All Through the Night" and "When the Saints Go Marching In."

More Piano Pride

I played a song on the piano today with notes played on different hands at the same time!!!  For me, this is the ultimate accomplishment, even if it were only "Jingle Bells" with a few simple chords, played very slowly and haltingly the first time through.  But it was one of my main aims for taking lessons and I'm on the right path.

Christmas carols, here I come!

Piano Pride

I've started piano lessons!

Yep, having that nice, new piano just sitting in the living room, silent all day while the kids are in school (because, when Bud gets home, it's not silent much until bedtime!), I decided to take lessons.  With our current, peripatetic piano teacher. She usually teaches kids but expanded this fall to include adults.  And so two of my friends whose kids study with the teacher are taking, too.  I've even heard we might have wine-and-music evenings INSTEAD of recitals!

And so I've begun.

I took piano the first time 20+ years ago, for three months one summer before grad school.  With a teacher--a young man at the local music studio--who was still in high school, I believe!  Sure, I learned some notes, I even learned hand positions for all of the keys and could cross over during some songs, but we never did any counting (like with a metronome), nor did we ever do any harmony or chords. This meant I could only play what I already knew and it was always pretty simple with only one note at a time.   I can't recall if that was at my request or he didn't manage to teach me counting and chords, but looking back it seems like we rushed ahead in some areas and stayed way behind in others.

Now, we're doing it right.

Of course, I have no illusions about being a master piano player.  I just want to be able to sit down and play a few songs, even from memory.  Simple folk songs, definitely Christmas songs.  Maybe "Happy Birthday."  In talking with the teacher, we're wondering if I should learn chords so that I can play from a fake book--simple harmonies alongside simple melodies, should sound good.

I think the teacher was surprised that I could actually recall the notes of the treble clef and figured out the bass clef if I went slowly enough.  I think I was surprised, too.

The kids were surprised most of all, I think, when I sat down and plinked out "Aura Lee" (aka "Love Me Tender") this morning.  Bud is ready to teach me his songs!

I think I have a ways to go with that.