Piano projects

Carden and Seth finished their year of piano lessons in grand style. Carden earned a gold cup for receiving 3 years of Superior ratings in the Music Federation's festival. Both boys performed well at the final, and both won the award for having the most weeks of "perfect practice."Personally, I think that award should go to me.

Their teacher requires a "Creative Musicianship" project every year--they have to do something creative or artistic incorporating music. This year the projects turned into much more than I expected, but we had a great time doing them.

Carden and I had attended a performance of the American Piano Duo, two pianists who play these elaborate duets of famous music that has been arranged for two pianos. He wrote down his impressions of each piece and made a poster showing the flags of all the countries the music originated from or was written for, and his notes from the performance.

I was proud of his work on the poster--cutting out those construction paper flags was much more meticulous work than he usually goes for. But I was most proud of how much he had enjoyed an adult concert experience. He stayed focused on the music, behaved well, and had a great time. It gives me hope that my life is not always destined to be picking up Legos and Barbie doll dresses and changing diapers.

Seth had a harder time deciding on a project, but I remembered how much he liked The Firebird Suite by Igor Stravinsky. We first discovered it from the Disney "Fantasia 2000" movie and a Little Einsteins DVD. Then we heard a piano version by the Five Browns. So Seth and I learned the history of the piece (a Russian fairytale turned into a ballet) and watched a clip of Stravinsky himself conducting the finale a few years before he died. Seth even watched the entire ballet performed by a Russian ballet company. (YouTube sure makes research easy!) It took 2 days to get through the whole thing, watching in 5-10 minute spurts, but he really got into it. For his project, he wrote about all the different versions he'd seen and listened to. Now he wants a French horn for his birthday.

As usually happens when mom is the official "ghostwriter," I learned as much as they did. Once we got to the recital, I realized that they had put in much more time and effort than other students, but at the same time, I think we had more fun and really thought about the music they chose. Just listening to classical music in the background is great, and we do a fair amount of that at home or in the car, but really delving into the pieces, listening to them over and over or examining the different arrangements made them come alive for us.