First Lesson.
So, I was pretty excited to get started. Tai and I had observed several lessons last month. I nearly died when it was finally Tai’s first lesson and he dove down and clutched the leg of a table in the room after the teacher asked him to come and take a bow. It took all my might to keep my mouth shut. I just threw the teacher a sheepish glance that read, “Good luck with this one.”
Finally, he managed to get control of his nerves, took a bow and sat down at the piano. I have to admit I was hoping we might do the bow and how to sit at the first lesson and call it a day – knowing that we could easily “master” that in a week of practice at home. But no, we learned Do. (I’m finally going to have to master Solfege as I am accustomed to letter names for notes). I thought the Mississippi Hot Dog rhythm on Do was pretty challenging. Each note has to be soft, staccato and sound the same as the others. Ok, we can do this. But then she added Sol with the 4th finger (and a quick lesson on finger numbers in between). Yikes!
Well, Tai practiced very well. We kept it short and sweet. There was some very mild frustration and goofing around (like toppling over during the bow), but Tai happened to get a terrible case of croup midway through the week so I was easy on him.
First piano lesson.
Second Lesson.
On the way to the second lesson, Tai mentioned that he was going to learn La. I told him that often in the beginning, learning is slow and we should expect to have to stay on Sol for a while.
This week, Tai greeted his teacher in a friendly and polite way, took the most beautiful bow. He sat at the piano with the most beautiful posture. His teacher worked with him on the tone of Mississippi Hot Dog on Do. She does not say things like good try, she does not compliment him on things that are unrelated to what he’s trying to do, she is clear about what she wants to hear and has him try again and again until she hears it. Tai was working very hard. Then they played Sol.
Then, they added La! Tai’s smile was so big. Not only that, they went back to Sol, then to Fa, Mi, Re and Do. The whole bread sections! Tai excitedly looked over at me and I matched his excitement by pretending to furiously scribble down all the extra notes in his notebook.
When we got into the car, Tai said, “That was fun, fun, fun!”
At home, he asks to practice. If I say, “In a minute,” he says, “Ok, I’ll wait at the piano.” Since the teacher asked us to focus on going from Do to Sol, we do that 10 times and only do the rest of the notes once. But Tai insists on 3 times and changed it in his practice chart.
I’m savoring these moments because I know it will not always be like this.
