Chopin Meets Suzuki and Alfred Hitchcock: 2013 Spring Music Recitals for Lars and Anders

It has been a busy spring for my boys this year, with their Willy Wonka Jr. performances at school followed immediately by Anders' Suzuki violin recital, followed the next weekend by both boys' piano recital.  For your viewing pleasure, I will share both recitals today. 

This was their first recital with their new piano teacher through the Community School of the Arts.  They both have been taking piano lessons for three years.

Here's my 12-year-old son, Lars, playing Chopin's Prelude in C Minor, Op. 28 No. 20:

...and here's my 9-year-old son, Anders, playing Gounod's Funeral March of a Marionette (which will sound familiar to Alfred Hitchcock fans): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCAJiBF9jVU.  (for some reason I was able to embed Lars's YouTube video but not Anders.'  Please let me know whether or not you are able to view the video when you click the link!)

Last but not least, here's Anders playing a Suzuki Etude at his Spring violin recital.  He has just completed his first year of violin lessons -- and of course I can't figure out why this YouTube video won't embed in my blog post, but here's a direct link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLJYSrp-ZAw&feature=youtube_gdata 

They both did a fine job, don't you think?

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun with Glitter Polish

Channeling My Inner 'Tween: Piano Practice is More Fun with Glitter Polish

Happy Sunday!  As you can see, I've accomplished great things today in the realm of nail polish.  I'm plodding along with my piano practice despite my frustrating tendency to practice the same mistakes over and over again.  Certain measures continue to pop up and take me completely by surprise, like whack-a-moles that I've never seen before, even though I've played the song hundreds of times by now.  There should not be any more surprises!  I've got Hedwig's Theme from Harry Potter completely memorized, but my fingers keep tripping over he keys in exactly the same places every time.  It's like I'm a really uncoordinated person trying to dance, who knows all the steps but just can't get her feet to execute them properly.  Last week I started working on the aptly-named Mission: Impossible theme and that's off to a rough start as well.  Since practice, scowling, and swearing weren't helping, I decided to try childish pink fingernails sprinkled with pixie dust to see if that helped me play better.  The verdict?  Well, it certainly can't hurt!

OPI Charged Up Cherry

OPI Last Friday Night

This actually looks even sillier in person -- bright, hot pink, topped with irridescent glitter.  Here, now, I'll pretend to be a Beauty Blogger and I'll tell you exactly which polishes I used, in case you'd like to indulge your own inner 'tween:

I've got an unbecoming shade of hot pink, OPI Charged Up Cherry, layered beneath OPI Last Friday Night from the Katy Perry Collection.  It's really a clear with a bluish tint.  Together, the effect is pleasantly obnoxious.  Anders editorializes that my fingernails look "horribly obnoxious!"  He doesn't even like glittery fake eyelashes -- party pooper!  Hmmm...  I volunteered to proctor EOG (End of Grade) testing at school next week.  Do you think it would be distracting to the kids if I dug those glittery eyelashes out of the Halloween box and wore them on testing day?

Other things that are obnoxious:  Blogger informing me just now that I have exceeded the storage limit in my Picasa album and now I have to pay to upload pictures of blue glitter nailpolish to my blog.  This makes me grouchy.  Doesn't Google know that there isn't enough glitter in the world, and I'm trying to do a public service here?

Lucas Is Naked! That's So Inappropriate!

Our piano tuner came this morning.  I guess the boys have been at school all the other times the piano has been tuned, because they were fascinated when the piano technician opened up the piano and started working on it.  Both boys crowded around the piano, peppering the man with questions as he worked.  Anders exclaimed, "Lucas is naked!  That's so inappropriate!"  To which Lars responded, "He only has his shirt off.  If he took his pants off, that would really be inappropriate!!"

Of course the piano technician is looking totally confused and a little uncomfortable at this point, probably wondering if Lucas is one of the kids or if Lucas is someone else who might come streaking through the living room at any moment...

Lucas is our piano (named after Lucas Films -- it's a Star Wars thing).

Sorry, Joe!

Mommy is Taking Piano Lessons!

So, did I mention I started taking piano lessons?  Come on, surely you suspected that I wanted to play piano myself back when I was obsessing over piano research prior to the purchase of Lucas (our boys' pet name for our Kawai full size upright piano.  It's a Star Wars thing). 

I believe I took less than a year of piano lessons as a child, around the same time I was struggling to stop biting my fingernails.  As my nails started to grow, I became very interested in having LONG, elegant fingernails, painting them different colors, sometimes with little flowers painted on...  When my piano teacher complained that my nails were too long and said they needed to be cut shorter, I quit piano and decided to devote more time to my manicures instead.  Yeah, whatever -- I'll bet you didn't have your priorities neatly in order as a twelve-year-old, either!

Sure, I would have learned faster if I had continued piano lessons as a child.  If ever I had it in me to play Chopin or Rachmaninoff, that window of potential talent may have closed for good decades ago.  I'll bet I lost a ton of classical piano brain cells in childbirth (along with the formula for determining the circumference of a circle, the Periodic Table, and certain arithmetic facts).  Resuming piano lessons in the, um, twilight of my thirties, I'm probably never going to be very good at it anyway, right?  So, why am I bothering? 

First of all, as an adult who regrets not learning to play piano as a child, I am more motivated to practice regularly than my kids are because I know what I'm missing out on if I don't follow through, and I really want to learn.  No one has to stand over me and alternate bribes with threats in order to get me to play.  See this article dispelling "kids learn faster than adults" and other common Piano Lesson Myths.  Secondly, orthopedic surgeon Dr. Tony Cicoria became obsessed with learning piano after being struck by lightning at age 42, with no previous musical experience or interest whatsoever, and he was able to become an accomplished pianist.  I'm no surgeon, but I'm not brain damaged by lightning strikes, either.  Surely there is hope for me as well!

I am a closet vocalist, singing for the thrill of making music in the shower, the garage, random empty stairwells in parking garages, and in certain little boys' bedrooms after story time.  When my voice is compromised by a sore throat and I can't get notes out the way I want to, I feel like the Little Mermaid who lost her voice.  The human voice is an instrument that deteriorates with age.  If you don't believe me, just listen to the original soundtrack recording of The Sound of Music and then listen to a more recent recording of Julie Andrews.  Learning piano gives me a backup instrument so I won't ever lose music, even if I lose my voice.  Also, when I'm singing, I'm limited by my vocal range, but with a piano I have the same 88 keys as everybody else and I can play any kind of music I want.  Or rather, I hopefully will be able to play any kind of music I want, as long as I keep up with my lessons and with practicing.

But here's one more reason why I'm taking piano lessons, and why I encourage other parents to pursue any dreams they may still have on the back burner, whether it's learning an instrument, or ballroom dancing, or sewing, or anything else: Our children are watching.  We guide them through childhood, encouraging them along the right path as much as possible, hoping they will find their way, but so many people come to a point in their lives where they have hit a dead end personally or professionally and they have to start over.  I want my sons to see that learning is a lifelong endeavor, not something that comes to an abrupt end after graduation.  I want them to know that it is never too late to start over, to choose a new direction, to nurture a new passion.  I'm not going to tell my kids that I'm too old to learn to play piano, because I don't want them to ever feel "too old" to learn something new.  Vive la musique!

Piano Odyssey Part Two: Lucas is Home At Last

It's here!!  Our long-awaited, carefully selected pre-owned piano was loaded onto a truck in Baltimore early Sunday morning to begin its trek to Charlotte.  The piano movers had several deliveries to make en route to our house, so it wasn't until around noon on Monday that they appeared on our doorstep.  We had spent a good bit of the weekend rearranging things in anticipation of the piano's arrival.  The chess table and chairs are now in the keeping room next to the kitchen fireplace, and the entertainment center and unused television it contained were lugged all the way up two flights of stairs to the third floor playroom.  I should point out that the television is not plugged into anything up there, no satellite or cable box, and no one is going to watch it up there, either.  It is amazing the amount of physical exertion and back pain my husband is willing to take on just to prevent me from throwing anything away. 

Anyway, Lars and Anders were so excited about the new piano when they got home from school that they raced through their homework as though their very lives depended on finishing first.  The one who finished first got to practice on the new piano first, and the one who finished just a few seconds later burst into tears.  But both boys got plenty of time to play, and both declared the piano to be a big improvement over the wretched, stinking keyboard.  In fact, they think the bass register on our piano sounds so good, they named the piano Lucas.  Yes, that would be as in Lucas Films, as in Star Wars...  (In case I haven't mentioned this already, EVERYTHING in our house at some level is about Star Wars!)

Lucas the Piano is beautiful.  He's not a grand, but he really fits the space well and although he's 26 years old, he looks brand-new.  Kind of like the digitally remastered Star Wars movies, come to think of it...  Lucas sounds rich, deep, and soulful, everything that we had hoped for in our piano.  Best of all, no rooster button!

Middle C is sticking a little bit, but when I called Rick Jones Piano Center to report it, they said that's a common occurrence right after a piano has been moved and it should resolve on its own within a few days -- if not, they will pay for any necessary repairs to be performed by the piano technician of my choice.  They are also paying for the first in-home tuning.  I couldn't be more pleased with the whole experience, and I feel like we got the very best instrument for our family within our budget. 

If I get any free time, I might just have to start taking piano lessons myself!

My Piano Odyssey

Briefly, I had a piano in my home.  It was a 4'6" Kimball baby grand that had belonged to my mother.  When my parents moved to Charlotte and downsized to a smaller home, my mother realized with dismay on move-in day that it was physically impossible to fit her formal living room furniture and piano into the small room she had designated for them in her new home, so the piano came to my house and was placed in a small sunroom just off of my family room.

My oldest son was about 4 at that time, and early attempts at piano lessons for him were disastrous for a number of reasons: immaturity, as-yet-undiagnosed and untreated ADHD, and a poor fit with the piano teacher.  So the piano stood in my sunroom mostly unused for a few years.  I went in there and visited it from time to time, playing my repertoire (I can play "Heart and Soul" and the first half of the theme from "Ice Castles," and I can pick out melodies with my right hand.  Woo hoo!  I used to be able to play parts of "Against All Odds," but alas, no more...).  In 2007 we moved less than a mile away from our previous home in order to get more living space, but the new home didn't really have a good place to put a baby grand piano that wasn't getting played, so the piano went back to my mother's house (she sensibly decided to get rid of her living room sofa to make room for it).  Here's my mom's piano, back in her own living room sans sofa:

My mother sewed those draperies and painted the stenciled design on the walls herself, by the way -- didn't she do a great job? 

Okay, so flash forward a couple of years.  Both of my sons started taking piano lessons last fall with a fabulous, amazing teacher who has unbelievable patience, is an incredibly talented musician, and loves my sons to pieces.  Thank you, God, for sending her!  But now I have two little boys who have to be reminded 15 times to brush their teeth and put on clean underwear every day, but who race over to the dinky little plastic keyboard every stinking morning as soon as they finish their breakfast and fight over whose turn it is to practice.  This is not just a fad; it has been a daily occurrence for eight months.  It's partly because they both really like music and have some natural ability, partly because music education is really important to me and my husband and we are supporting and encouraging them, but mostly it's because Saint Glenda of Piano Lessons has been writing them custom arrangements of music from Star Wars, Harry Potter, and Indiana Jones.  Here's my little one, playing Star Wars on the nasty plastic keyboard, in full Yoda costume:

The nasty plastic keyboard in this photo is actually the predecessor to the even nastier plastic keyboard currently in my home.  This one cost $40 brand-new on eBay, and I'm lucky that it lasted as long as it did.  When it began randomly switching instrument voices while they were playing (Yoda was in tears), my resourceful husband got a great deal on a nicer Yamaha keyboard at a pawn shop, but unfortunately it reeks like an ash tray and I can't stand to get within three feet of it...  But I digress.

So beginning around Thanksgiving of last year, I began researching and shopping for pianos.  Right off the bat, I decided I liked Steinway art case grand pianos, but after several weeks in a row of not winning Powerball I abandoned that scheme as impractical.  Which is a shame, because this would have looked AMAZING in my living room:

This is a one-of-a-kind Steinway reproduction of the 1889 Alma-Tadema art case piano that sold at auction for a record $1.2 million at Christie's in 1997.  The reproduction, currently available for sale from Steinway, is a steal at only $675,000.  In case your pockets are deeper than mine, you can find more information about this gorgeous piano here.  Who knew pianos could even BE that expensive?!  Even a smaller, garden variety Steinway grand piano is way out of my budget, priced around $50-70K for a new one or $30-50K for a used one in good condition.

I did a lot of research over the past few months and learned an awful lot about piano guts and how they work, the care and feeding of pianos, and what NOT to buy.  For anyone embarking on a piano quest of their own, I strongly recommend Larry Fine's Piano Book: Buying and Owning a New or Used Piano.  From that book, I learned that school piano sales are like furniture "going out of business" sales, primarily a sales gimmick to get buyers in and hoodwink them into thinking that they are getting fantastic deals when they may actually be paying more than the usual dealer price.  I also learned to avoid spinet pianos (poor sound quality on such short strings) and that "antique" upright pianos aren't worth the cost of restoration unless they are Steinways.  A local piano technician has a great buyer-beware article about the hidden costs and heartaches that come with "free" and low-priced used uprights that you can read here.  (Scroll down past the pianos they have for sale; the article is way down at the bottom).  So we didn't go that route, either.  Instead, I scoured eBay and Craig's List for months, looking for a private seller wanting to find a good home for their well-loved, well-maintained Kawai or Yamaha piano.  Okay, I admit it -- I continued to harbor hopes that I would find some fool selling his grandmother's Steinway who had no idea what it was worth.  No dice!  I thought for sure I would be able to capitalize on the misfortunes of someone in foreclosure who couldn't take their piano with them and needed to cash out, but I just didn't find any opportunities like that.  What I did find was a ton of 50-60 year old spinet pianos for sale, lots of "free" or nearly-free 150-year-old upright pianos that I had also been warned to stay away from, and a whole slew of weird-looking Steinway SQUARE grand pianos from the late 19th century that, sadly, were a failed experiment in piano design and, according to Mr. Fine, are not suitable for anyone who wants to actually play the piano.  I just have to show you one, though:

Looks pretty interesting, doesn't it?  This one is currently for sale on eBay, and there are about five others just like it for sale on Charlotte Craig's List right now, too.  Unfortunately, despite sellers' claims to the contrary, they are NOT rare and valuable, they typically require an enormous investment in repairs and rebuilding using a hodgepodge of antique and modern parts that don't quite fit -- assuming you can even find a technician willing to work on one of these beasts -- and even after all of that, this type of piano still will never be able to perform up to modern standards.  Buyer beware!

Somewhere in the midst of all of this research and piano lust, I had the foresight to obtain a grand piano template from a local piano dealer.  This is just a huge piece of heavy paper with the outline of several sizes of grand pianos drawn on it in different colors.  For those of you who sew, it looks just like a commercial multisize garment pattern.  When I laid the grand piano template out on my living room floor, I was confronted with the unpleasant reality that a grand piano STILL is not going to fit in that room, not unless I get rid of the coffee table and the sofa, like my mother did to fit her piano.  The difference is that no one ever sat in my mother's sofa, but my husband's enormous flat screen TV is in my living room and he likes to sprawl on the sofa to watch larger-than-life movies and basketball games.  I reluctantly determined that replacing his sofa with a grand piano would not have been a healthy choice for my marriage.  Uprights may not be as exciting to look at as grand pianos, but Larry Fine's book says that a full-size, 52" upright piano can sound just as good if not better than a grand piano smaller than 6'.  Somewhere along the way, had I forgotten this quest was supposed to be all about music?

Meanwhile, as I desperately tried to locate the magical piano that existed at the intersection of my hopes, dreams, and budget, my sons tormented me with the obnoxious built-in tunes and sound effects on that demonical keyboard.  The song "Jingle Bells" has been ruined for me forever, and why on earth would anyone need crowing rooster sound effects on a keyboard?  If you're getting sick of reading about this piano hunt already, that's how I was feeling about it myself up until a few days ago when I finally made a decision and ended this whole thing (hopefully once and for all).  I purchased a completely rebuilt and refinished 1984 Kawai US-50 from Rick Jones Pianos in Baltimore, sight unseen.  It has new strings, new pins, new keytops, and a brand new finish, and I got it for a fraction of the cost of a new 52" upright Kawai.  The dealer's web site is great -- their inventory is extensive and they give detailed information of every piano they sell with high-resolution photos inside and out, as well as a video clip of each piano actually being played so you can compare the sound, almost like being there in the showroom in person.  There is no sales tax for out of state customers, their professional delivery is reasonably priced, and get this -- I am getting a 10 year warranty on my used piano, which is better than I would get on a brand new one.  You can see pictures of it here, or at least you will be able to see them until the dealer takes them off his web site.  The piano is supposed to be delivered the week of April 25th-29th, so I'll post some photos once it gets here.  Maybe I'll even get adventurous and teach myself to play the second half of "Ice Castles!"