Saturday was our annual spring recital. I couldn't be prouder of all my students. Most of them had their songs memorized, and they all were so confident up there! Thing 2 did great, playing the much loved "From A Wigwam." He told me, "No mistakes, Mom!" when he sat down. And Thing 1 made me so proud; he played his first "real" classical piece, "Waltz in B Flat" by Schubert.
This year I did things a bit differently. First of all, I held this recital with two other piano teachers in my neighborhood, something I had never done before. It was really fun, and it was good for the kids to hear some older kids play "the real stuff." I'm hoping they gained a little inspiration, maybe enough for some practicing this summer? My fingers are crossed.
Something else that I did differently was that after much prodding by one of the other teachers, I performed a song. I hadn't played a solo at a recital since my senior year of high school. I was trying to decide what piece to play, and thought back to that senior year when I tried to quit piano because I was so unbelieveably busy, but my teacher wouldn't let me stop. I had learned all the pieces she had wanted me to learn that year except one - "Valse Chromatique" by Benjamin Godard. It's a great piece, but it's full of crazy chromatic scales (hence the name), and I just couldn't get some of the passages down in time for my senior recital. I ended up pulling it at the last minute and playing something else. It always kind of bugged me that I never finished that piece, so I blew fifteen years' worth of dust off of it and got to work. I didn't quite play it perfectly on Saturday, but I did it. Mrs. Martin, that one was for you. It was really liberating, like getting a splinter out that's been annoying you for a while.
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