The little one and her violin

The little one has been learning the violin for one more year. She has definitely grown in confidence and has improved in spite of not practicing enough (we agree, her teacher agrees and most importantly, she agrees!) 

Here are some photos and a video snippet from the Winter Recital from the Music school.

There was a big surprise at the recital! Haik, who had come to the US to play on Sunday to a sold out concert came to encourage the students. 

Imagine you are warming up in your schools playground and suddenly the gym teacher says "kids, I have a little surprise for you. Usain Bolt happens to be a family friend and he is here to show you how he runs the 100m and will also answer questions on how he trains and anything else you might want to ask him and you can take pictures with him after the recital! " In violin terms, that is what happened !

The kids loved it. They also saw "how easy" it was to play like that if you practice for only 25 years! 

We enjoyed the evening with the little one doing her recital without mistakes and Haik's little cameo. Next year, if she practices well, the little one might be going on to doing more nuanced pieces. We wait with bated breath... 

West and East

Jr. gets to practice saxophone over the weekends. Her teacher is making sure an email goes out saying she practiced and Jr. knows she has to, if the email has to go out!

I am also making her practice Carnatic music when we get a chance. She knows the songs by heart and it is a question of being able to follow the notation in the paper and translating instantly in her head from a different south Indian classical notation. 

She does a great job of both and has improved a lot.

Next week, Nagumomu in Raga Abheri.. at least the first few lines!

More than her practicing, these videos end up with some funny outtakes. Hope the kids have fun watching this years from now.

Opportunity

A friends daughter who is in middle school showed a small demo of how she does her music homework. They have a software site to log on to, and once they log on, the "sheet music" for the homework shows up. They play the musical instrument in front of the laptop and the mic pics it up. If they hit the right notes in sequence, the notes keep lighting up in green. If they hit wrong notes, it shows the note they hit in red and helps them correct.

The teacher grades this online and they know which note is a problem for the student (which they hit consistently wrong) and suggests methods to help them improve!

The software also gives student sheet music access to hundreds of music books.

If I had access to anything like this during my student days, can totally imagine spending hours on this and practicing.

Now when you are older and can afford a music lesson and can with difficulty make time (because your kids can do a lot of things by themselves), your ability to learn a new language like sheet music is more difficult.

Jr. and the little one are going to be given the opportunity to learn the fundamentals of music so they can understand and explore. What they make of it later as they grow older is up to them. We will at least try to give them the basics...

Sometimes, we live through our kids. This is one of those things...

1. They are not going to wait till they are 30 to learn how to swim.
2. They will get to learn Carnatic music formally
3. They can learn dance if they want to and can keep up with it

and now

4. they will get to learn how to read sheet music and the notation.

and maybe Daddy will learn with them...

Hey, I am just old, not dead!

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