Mary's First Recital

About a year and a half ago, my parents were at one of those "estate sales" where you anticipate that things will be overpriced or that there won't be anything that you would actually want. Anyway, they scored. They picked up a small upright piano for $50! It's certainly nothing fancy, but it is in good condition minus one decent-sized gash along the top of it. It's a little out of tune, but not that bad and we hope to tune it soon. It stayed in my parents garage until we moved back home to WA and when we moved up here to Whidbey Island, it moved with us.

For the last 6 months or so, Mary has been working on teaching herself the piano along with some astute tutoring from a local friend. She has been using the Jon Schmidt method and is specifically using the book "67 Fun Songs Arranged by Jon Schmidt". He is an amazing pianist and if you'd like to see some of his work go to youtube and search "Piano Guys" and there is some real cool videos that he does along with Celloist Steven Sharp Nelson. Mary's friend helps her with specific tips and corrections here and there. Mary has been doing great and tries to practice 10-15 minutes a day. I have been impressed with what she has started to put out and I have also enjoyed seeing how it inspires Sarah to practice a lot on her own... and she seems to have quite the knack for it. It's been great and a huge thanks to my parents for picking up the piano for such a steal and thinking of us!

Anyway, Mary had her first recital (Sarah played at it as well, impromptu) at her teachers house, who has several other students - adults and kids. Mary played Jon Schmidt's version of Silent Night and it sounded great... not perfect, but great! I was proud of her accomplishment and her pushing herself in this regard and seeing benefits. I enjoy hearing her progress a little over time and am impressed with how much she has grown in a relatively small amount of time.

Sarah & Schroeder

So I always liked the Schroeder fella from Peanuts even though he never really liked Lucy. And of course everyone loves when Snoopy comes and dances on top of his piano when he gets going. Sarah and Nathan have made the Disney movie Tarzan their movie of choice over the last week or so, which is cool because our whole family loves the soundtrack. At the end of the credits on the VHS version that we own it has the music video for one of the songs that Phil Collins does and as soon as that starts to come on Sarah runs into the Playroom and comes running out with her little piano to play away with the music. She's got the beat down pat, even though she's severely limited on matching the notes on her four-key piano. She really gets into it and goes throughout the song. I didn't capture Nathan dancing on top of Sarah's piano but that's not because he didn't want to. I think that we need a better piano option for Sarah if anyone (Nanu & Bumpa?) has one laying around ;*)

Here's Sarah really going to town on the "ivories".