Halloween Recital

Zoë and Benjamin both recently finished their primer level piano books and moved onto their level 1 books and it just so happened that they both had Halloween-themed songs near the beginning of their books. We figured this would be a good month to learn them (so I skipped several songs for both of them and assigned the Halloween songs, but we'll go back to what we missed; it'll all work out in the end). They haven't been practicing very long, but we decided to record them anyway...before it was time for Christmas music, ya know?

Rachel joined in with Funeral March (Chopin), which she'd learned a while ago but freshened up for the recital, and Miriam bravely decided to attempt Toccata and Fugue in D Minor (Bach), even though she hasn't quite finished learning the last four page-turns or so. 

Alexander decided he would sing his favourite Halloween song. We all ended up being back-up singers for him because he kept singing too quietly on his own. But he did great.

Zoë, as it turned out, wasn't quite in the mood to play the piano this evening. It didn't help that we had to do about a billion takes of her piece because she refused to count (because she wasn't in the mood). The last I checked she had this song down pat, but this evening...she really had a hard time with it. So we'll all just be impressed that she got through it with a smile on her face (because I really did make her play it, like, twenty times). 

Benjamin nailed his piece. I wish he would mind his slurs and he probably could have slowed things down a bit, but considering he can play this song in under ten seconds, we'll appreciate that he slowed it down to a full thirty. He likes to play it with the organ sound because he thinks it sounds like a creepy carnival.

Rachel did well, considering she hadn't played her piece much in recent history, and Miriam was thrilled that—even with a few blunders—she got through the song "within the recommended 9 to 12 minutes!"

That song is long!

As for me, I'm impressed that I was able to be page-turner to Miriam. She has the first several minutes of the song memorized and wanted her music to start at the second she hasn't yet memorized, so I was impressed that I can read music well enough to have recognized when she got to the page she was on and then follow her through the piece (more or less) because I'm honestly not that great at reading music. 

Which is why I'm teaching my children piano lessons?

Because that makes sense.

Okay, so it doesn't really make much sense, but it has improved my musical skills alongside theirs. Of course, I'm not teaching Miriam. She passed me up long ago!

Anyway, without further ado, here is our Halloween Recital: