Even as the Delta variant is taking over the southern United States and as we're stubbornly refusing to socialize in groups (especially indoors), we're preparing to send the girls to orchestra next month. I'm really hoping that things will clear up by then...
But we already took a year off of orchestra and I just am not musically talented enough to give the girls the instruction that they need. Rachel is fully vaccinated and Miriam will soon be able to be vaccinated as well. The rest of us have to stay outside, anyway, and the orchestra meets in small groups, so hopefully it will be alright.
Anyway, the girls had to send in an audition video (not to get in to the orchestra, but so that their teacher/conductor can put them into an appropriate level) and we finally got around to making those videos yesterday.
Rachel recorded hers by herself while I helped Miriam put together a few songs. We've been working on a duet that she really wanted to record (though I daresay it's not her very best playing, but she recently sized up her cello and got glasses so she was working with a lot of things she wasn't quite used to), so we did that one and then Miriam recorded a couple of songs from her methods book.
Here we are playing Vivaldi's Spring:
While I was helping Miriam with her videos, Rachel sent me a couple of videos and said that she'd redo them if she had to (for example, she knew she messed up the second video) but that she didn't really want to (and was willing to just live with the mistakes). I suggested that she simply re-record the second video to see if she does any better but she just about died at that suggestion, so I let it go.
I watched the first video and thought it was fine, so I started a new email and attached the file. I thought about watching the second video but thought, "Meh. The first one was fine. This one probably will be, too," and simply attached it as well.
It's not that I don't care. It's just that it was dinnertime and I was hungry. I had just given piano lessons to Zoë and Benjamin, helped the girls get their instruments in tune, gave Alexander a fake piano lesson, helped Miriam record her audition videos...and I was ready to be done with that portion of the day and move on to food. (Did I mention I'm pregnant? I get hangry.)
Luckily, I noticed that while the first video took a few seconds to upload, this second video uploaded nearly instantaneously. So I looked at the file size and noticed that it was incredibly small... So I went back to the original clip and noticed that it was incredibly short... So I played the video and...
...found a charming 12-second clip of a very frustrated Rachel (which I post with her blessing).
"You might want to redo that second video," I told her via text.
She stormed upstairs and collapsed beside me on the couch, sighing with exasperation.
"I've done like 35 takes!" she wailed.
"Watch this one with me and you'll want to give it one more try," I told her.
"No, I won't," she said confidently.
"I promise you will," I said.
So we watched it together and dissolved into laughter on the couch. Rachel agreed that she should probably redo that video so she went downstairs and took a quick 36th take of this little ditty:
MUCH better!
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