Today is Earth Day. I drove my SUV to school. LOL. I do love our earth, I really do, but I had to drive the carpool this morning, so SUV it was. Yesterday I came home to find 3 of my perennials (purple desert loving verbena) yanked out of the ground. It seems my gardener had not been informed that there were actual weeds in the yard (dandelions and morning glory) that needed pulling. On the plus side, my tulips look gorgeous. They are lucky they do not remotely resemble any indigenous weeds. The up side to having a gardener like mine is that he cooks the wonderful things we grow into delicious gourmet meals. I wouldn't trade him for the world.
Today I played my Rachmaninoff Concerto No. 4 for concert class. I lost my place and had another memory lapse (OF COURSE), but otherwise played really well. I think I made some beautiful music. The audience clapped and whooped for me. I think they enjoyed it. I hope the day will come soon that I will be able to play ANYTHING at all without forgetting. So far, I forget, so maybe I qualify as a very good intermediate pianist. I don't feel quite like a "Master" yet. I always feel like I just had a heart attack after I play by memory. Tonight I'm going to play 2 pieces for my "Piano Club:" Granados' El Pelele, and Haydn's Eb Sonata III. Presto. I think it'll go well.
I had the greatest experience with one of my piano students today. He is playing a piece called "With A Yo-Ho-Ho!" His rhythm was iffy on one part, so we made up some words for it so he could more easily remember the rhythm. Here are our lyrics: "Here's a pirate song for a very cool dude; will you please give me some food?" Other lyrics in the rest of the piece were, "Now you'll walk the plank. You're a very stupid guy. You will drown and die," or my favorite, "If you don't say the roots you will walk the plank." It went on and on and we laughed and laughed. We practiced the piece over and over while we made up gory lyrics. I think maybe now he'll finally get it. I really enjoy teaching. I cannot WAIT for this semester to end.
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Sounds like you had a great day!
ReplyDeleteThis is a great post Tawna. Of course they whooped and clapped--it's Rach 4! How many people do you come across who play that piece? Even in the Twin Cities (and this place is crawling with classical musicians), you would be in a very select group, with or without your memory lapse.
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