Music, Sweet Music

The boy.

The Studio

This may go down as my all time favorite photo--Dr. Suzuki approved. 

They didn't have a good time--you can see. . . 

More fun. . . 

Mary waits her turn at the Deerwood talent show on the last day of school

This picture's gonna make me cry every time. 

Mary's friend is a beautiful dancer.

Singing in the Rain

Music, sweet music, thy praises we sing. . .

What can I do but describe the musical events of late. . .

Studio recital: twenty-two kids played beautifully and ate 347 cookies and drank four gallons of lemonade. I made almond bars in tribute to the Fox Bugasch family and brownies to honor Linda Erickson. Highlights? Haven lifting her hands at the end of Cuckoo, Preston my blind student playing Chant Arabe hands together if you know what I mean, and Lena's Nocturne and Solomon's Petit Poisson. We unofficially renamed Debussy's piece to honor Solomon's obsession with fishing.

Chamber music: Three groups (I missed the photo of the second group--sadly) played their pieces with Conor and Adrianna, parents of Úna. It was a real treat to say the least and we were all a good team--my role primary as stage manager.  Chamber music is amazing--the kids start out completely deer in the headlights--they can't listen--they don't follow--they can't even hear themselves. Then in a fifteen minute rehearsal they are hearing the inner voices and subdivisions of the string parts and rhythm improves, tone color changes and they are using their body language and breathing with an ensemble. I dream of making this a focus of my studio--figuring out a way to get this to happen more than once a year. Piano is a lonely lonely business. You practice by yourself year after year and sit down with an ensemble and everything changes.

Moving on to the talent show circuit. First the middle school--which I don't have good pictures of--only video of Calvin's grunge band playing Seven Nation Army. I guess this is a classic alternative rock song making me feel about 100 years old because let's face it I'm out of the the classic alternative rock scene. The band was really good--five pieces with Noah as a front man and Calvin as drummer and the other buddies on those instruments with necks and amplifiers--what are they called again?

For the record-I asked Calvin what he was going to wear--he had a classical piano performance later in the talent show--and I suggested a black polo shirt. No, he said, I'm going to wear what I always wear. Cue the bright aqua polo shirt. We've made progress, he did unbutton the top button and the other four band members in their black Death Metal tee-shirts did not bat an eye. Is the mom supposed to micro manage the wardrobe of the rock drummer son? Jeepers. . . too many gigs under my belt with my roper boots in a sacred shoe box in my closet even though after two babies they would never fit on my feet again.

These talent shows mess me up. The kids get up there and do their thing--whether it's grunge metal or reciting the countries by memory or playing the melody to We are the Champions on alto sax and these adolescent kids--notorious for cruelty and ambivalence scream and cheer and pay attention to every single act. I don't know where this benevolence comes from. The black kids doing that bendy dance where the arms jerk and it looks like the bones bend--I'm sure there is a name for this genre--clapping for the white girls singing Rip Tide with the ukulele ensemble. I'm just saying--it crosses boundaries--not racial and gender only--but talent/no talent, which may be even wider. Since I am a grownup and I know myself, grounded in who I am, I brought two packs of kleenex.

Ditto on the grade school show. You got Mary's friend Juju who dances only thirty hours a week at the studio and you got the fifth grader playing his favorite Faber and Faber Book One Selection. Cheers and thunderous applause for all. Of course I should be giving the faculty more kudos here. Whenever the girl gets up to sing a solo song in front of the microphone with Taylor Swift right there with her on vocals from the CD. . . Mr. T at the soundboard knows exactly how much of Suzie to actually put in the mix. This is not his first rodeo. Also--whoever the teacher was, who made the wave signs for the stage hands to hold up for these solo vocal artists, has a special place in heaven. Whatever musical momentum Suzie may be growing into--is bolstered by the entire school waving their imaginary cells phones back and forth in harmony. God bless us everyone. I can't even write about it without the kleenex. Humanity at it's finest.

All glory laud and honor to District 196 for it's ability development from age zero philosophy. There ain't no high school musical without the singing and dancing chicklets in the fourth and fifth grade.  Albeit occasionally painful. And if you can get that eighth grade kid with the high tops and hoodie up there dancing the bendy dance in front of 250 peers you done something right. He was amazing by the way--I'm not being facetious.

My one suggestion--since nobody asked--we've got to teach these kids how to bow. Mary bowed because she bows in her sleep and the front man from Calvin's band collected all the dancers at the end of the middle school show and grabbed hands for an audience acknowledgment. Very classy. Frames the performance. Now I'll shut up.  Well, one more suggestion-BHMS needs a boom mic stand. The poor gal playing piano and singing with the mic stand between her legs and having to move her hands around the stand to play lower or higher--yeah--she didn't need that. I'm gonna pick one up at the music store next time I'm there. It's the little things sometimes.

Happy summer. I'm practicing like crazy and getting coached to finish off this teacher trainer application. I've got one more piece to record and the application is in the mail. Well--I still need a video of a student's book four piece in a format that actually has audio. Then. . . I'm set.

Thanks for reading the music, sweet music Kotrba journal.
Sara