Piano Experience

A little over two years ago, ballet girl finished Suzuki piano book 1. In a school recital she performed  all but one piece. Preparing for that recital was stressful for me. I consulted a friend who suggested recording some practice sessions and critiquing the observations. I found it difficult to juggle many pieces at various levels of 'done', and I was surprised when at the end they all came out well.

Now that Suzuki book 2 has been completed, we are at it again-preparing for another recital. Again, there are many moving parts and nothing is at its final steady state. We are two weeks away and there are two complete songs, and two scale and accompanying cadences that need to be learned. I am uncomfortable. I really dislike rushing. 

What makes me especially uneasy is a competition that took place this weekend with the results of which I am not content. I wish I had taken the contest more seriously, and I wish I had pushed for better preparation from the teacher. Walking out of lesson on Saturday, I could not believe that the song was not reviewed, at all, given that the competition was the following day. At this point, there was one thing I wanted from this piece-even tempo. Ballet girl delivered. I know ballet girl would have played it better if her teacher had listened to the piece and made the few last minute corrections, which from the judge's remark are definitely problematic.

I also feel that I should not be the one doing the planning for the recital prep. I feel that I should have received some direction, or scheduling from the teacher. There are certain things I do not mind taking responsibility for, but the scheduling should be with the teacher. For the book 1 recital and now for the book 2 recital. I doubt that other parents are on the hook the way I have been. I am also struggling with the whole book recital concept - it takes time to relearn old songs, and again, for me it is uncomfortable to juggle songs in various stages of done. 

I came through a web search at a site which among other advice had the following section. I appreciate this, but I still want more help from the teacher. 

“I must not work on any new pieces until I master the one I’ve already started.”

Reality: Professional pianists have 10 or 20 pieces that they are working on concurrently! There are sections within each piece that are at varying levels of mastery. This is really a good way to go about practicing, because if we become fatigued or bored, we become much less efficient with our learning. By giving yourself permission to switch your attention to different compositions or to different sections within one piece, you are actually BECOMING efficient. This happens for two reasons: 1) You are honoring your fatigue level on any one piece. 2) When you step away from working on something, you allow your subconscious to do ITS job and continue processing it without giving it your attention. This dramatically increases the results, better than if you had been exclusively working on the one piece.

First Piano Recital

Ballet girl has been taking piano lessons since January 17, 2013, a year and 2 months. She finished the entire Suzuki Book 1 in December 2013. Since then we have been reviewing and recovering the very first songs.

Her graduation solo recital is scheduled for two weeks from today. The recital will be in her music school in front of family, friends and school friends.

I gathered advice from friends on how to prepare for the recital, the teacher gave me some ideas as well. I combined them into a package/strategy that I think will be most suitable for my girl. This page I will update every day with what we have been doing:

Day 1. March 2, 2014:
This morning Ballet girl warmed up with the C scales, a few times up and down. Then I videotaped her going through the first half of the recital, the first 9 songs. Some she re-did because the first time she made a lot of mistakes. The run time for this was 11 minutes. We listened to the video and I reminded her of two things: 1) take a break between each piece and position yourself and your hands 2) if you make a mistake and get confused, play the right hand separately once and then put together (even at the concert). We took a quick 3-4 minute break. Then we ran through the songs in the first half of the recital, once each, one more time. The total was 5 minutes. We listened and critiqued. By the way, even with the mistakes the sound she makes is wonderful. Then we reviewed two pieces-Cuckoo and Lightly row. There are 1 or 2 places in each where she tends to make a mistake. One thing that I learned is that Ballet girl knows the names of each note she plays. She actually knows the music in her head by the name of the notes. When we were first learning, I used to tell her the names, maybe she retained it from then, a whole year ago. We will run through the second half of her program in the afternoon.

Afternoon: running through the last 8 pieces took 12 minutes, some were repeated, one was not finished. We reviewed the video and took a 5 minute break. During the break I played all the pieces to remind Ballet girl of the tunes. Then she ran through the solid and somewhat less shaky pieces again. Two were left for review and were reviewed for a good 5 minutes.

Day2, Mon, March 3: Ballet girl played the first 10 songs of her repertoire. She only needed to repeat one piece twice. This part of the practice lasted about 5 minutes. The remaining practice around 7 minutes, was devoted to Short Story which is the second piece in Suzuki Book 2. We then spent some time observing the keys hitting the strings inside the piano. It was a pleasant practice.

Day3, Tue, March 4: Ballet girl played the last 8 pieces of her repertoire.We reviewed only one. She cruised through them in roughly 7 minutes. The rest of the time, for a total of 15 minutes, we practiced Short Story.

Day4, Wed, March 5: class. Ballet girl played her entire repertoire for the teacher and received accolades. Our work on Sunday really paid off.

Day6 Thu, March 6: it was my intention to review the first  9 pieces only. Once we had reached the goal I had set, and in a short amount of time, I figured we might as well keep on going. We did and finished the entire repertoire, with one or two remarks, in about 15 minutes. Then Ballet girl practiced Short Story from Suzuki book 2.

Day7-9: We took the books with us but we did not piano playing. Instead we skied, swam, ate pizza and drove back. Ballet girl fell in love with skiing and her instructor. Sunlight boy liked it but not as much. He is a late boomer:). Good time must be had.

Day10, Mon, March 10: Ballet girl played the entire repertoire. The only shaky pieces were: Cuckoo, Long Long Ago and Alegretto1. She played these few until she got them right. The total practice was around 20 minutes. We did not practice the Book 2 pieces. This week we concentrate on Book 1 only. This is the finale:)

Day11, Tue, March 11: Ballet girl ran through her entire repertoire with grandma this evening. They even worked a little on Eccossaise and Short Story.

Day12, Wed, March 12: break- Ballet girl had a jazz, a ballet and a gymnastic class today; all one after the other and I am not certain why she was not exhausted afterwards. She came home and started showing off her gymnastic skills. It has been almost one year since her last gymnastic class.

Day13, Thur, March 13: Ballet girl played all pieces-the 10 marked with blue sticker she played with my mom and the remaining 8 marked with yellow sticker she played with me. She is ready!!!

Day14, Fri, March 14: Given how well she played yesterday I was surprised at how poorly she played tonight. But to keep in line with the principle that no emotions and no stress needs to be introduced in the last minute when if something is broken it is better left broken, I asked her to repeat the pieces which she played poorly until she played them correctly (it took 3-4 tries per missed piece; and she missed 2). The practice was longer than what I had envisioned but was stress free. I have made good effort in not emphasizing the recital but the tone of the music.  Ballet girl is ready. She needs to take a good nap tomorrow afternoon and she is ready to go.

Day15, Sat, March 15: Ballet girl went to her piano class where she had a quick run of the shakier pieces. Then we came home, had lunch and napped, and because they both woke up earlier, I let them watch Ratatouille. Then we dressed up and went to the school.  The performance was great! I am extremely proud of my little girl!

There are two things I want to mention:
1) I pointed out to Ballet girl how she took an entire year to learn the 19 songs, and how it took her 15 minutes to play them. I explained that she is good because she has worked extra hard during a long time. She understood what I meant because she said: ' just like you are good at math because you worked hard and long time'. Yes, indeed.
2) I was disappointed at the school for not putting any effort into Ballet girl's graduation. There was no flyer to announce it, no printed program-in fact, the expectation was that I would take care of the program because I am the one practicing at home and arranging the pieces in order. I was surprised at these statements but given that I had enough time to react, I prepared the program and they turned out great. Still, a little advertising never hurts. It shows respect for the performing child and encourages other children to attend, listen, appreciate and strive towards something, even if it is a little trophy.
3) I was disappointed at the people who did not attend. I do understand that people have busy lives and have plans; which is one reason I sent out invitations 2 weeks before the concert. None of her friends, who would otherwise show up at a birthday party, came. It is not the children's fault, it is the parents who think that a birthday party is more valuable experience for their children that attending a peer's moment of recognition. I also know that some parents struggle with their own complexes and because of that would not take their children to another child's event. Their child after all must be it. When in truth no child is exclusively it-all have weaknesses and strengths. I am disappointed at the teachers who promised would come and did not. Ballet girl really wanted to hold off until her Kinderegarten teacher came. I am glad I insisted that we move on.
4) The people that came were enough and were the right audience for us. I am forever grateful to them for honoring my little girl's achievement. It is a small step among so many, but it is an important steps, because without it as a foundation all the other steps will not be possible. Thank you all who came! Thank you for your support!