Oh yes, someone will spend this evening using paper tissues. A lot of them. You know, music can cause that effect, when it awakens emotions in a hypersensitive person and tears show themselves. But, this is not the case with me this evening. Tissues, YES, I have already used up almost all of what you see in my cover photo. As well as tea from this sweet piano mug, which I received as a gift from a student. The reason for the need for paper tissues, though, is different. Common cold!!!! I can't believe it, I went to work healthy, ok, my throat was sore, but when I started with the lessons, also my nose started to run. I couldn't just cancel the lessons once I was already there. Anyway, it was not a so difficult day, mainly just teenager students had lessons today, so I could leave them a bit of more independent work around the musical pieces they play.
Some of my students are playing easier stuff, and not classical music at all. Sometimes it is difficult to get them to stick to more complex music, so Bach is not an option always. As I like to finish the working day with some organized thoughts on how the day went (well, well, that would be the ideal version, though we are not close to achieving this feature..), usually I write down in a notebook what and how they did on the lesson, and what are the next pieces they would/should like to play. If not, many times I forget to prepare the scores for the next week. But you know, later I even forget to look at those notes and sometimes I even lose them. So my day summary will come now through this post, it will not be lost, with tissues, of course, remembering what they played, maybe in some better versions :) No, I am still not crying, and will not. Ok, maybe, if I realize how better these recordings are then my student's playing ;D
In the first lesson, I had one 15-year-old boy playing a cover of the song Counting Starts - it was his wish, and his cousin playing Comptine d'un autre été, by Yann Tiersen. It is not a so difficult one for her, I gave her the scores without explaining it and she came already knowing half of it. The part with the sixteenth notes took a bit more time, but once I showed her the patterns and how easy she can go through the chords, and also a few tricks for the hand position, it was ok. I am sure she will nail it until the next week.
Next to mention will be a 17 years old girl, who choose to play a piece from the animated fantasy film Howl's Moving Castle. The composer of the soundtrack is a Japanese composer, Joe Hisaishi. We are working on it for several weeks already. There are parts in this main theme of the film that are more challenging for her. The main problem is that she relies more on her muscle memory and hearing than on scores. Typical note reading problem, as with the ability for learning quickly by heart one gets less and less used to read the notes and play at the same time. So, she is stuck in the middle part now, but she showed a lot more security today with the first part, it went more easily already. The title of this theme is "The Merry-Go-Round of Life".
There were some not so interesting other pieces too that my ear had to listen to, and my running nose and sore throat were not affected by them. They just calmly continued to do what they were supposed to do, for the third hour in a row. A full paper bin of used tissues. Then came the last student, who plays classical music. He likes to play everything, maybe more music from animated films and some completely modern, strange music he finds. But, according to the program, he should progress with reading because he is preparing to enroll in the conservatory. I practiced Bach, Beethoven, and Chopin with him the most. He plays one Two-Part Invention, in B minor. Half of the piece is going well, but there are still places to improve in the end and work on dynamics and phrasing.
Beethoven. Variations! Not his favorite. Although he plays it by heart already, I have to get him to listen to the details more carefully, but he seems not to pay a lot of attention to achieving a more sophisticated touch while playing the theme. He finds it maybe too static... He likes the fast variations, and the last one, but what happened today is that his right arm started to hurt. I know why it happened: he doesn't practice it slowly. Actually, I think he doesn't practice it at all, as once he learned it he thinks that's all. Well, it is not. There are always details that have to be improved, so in this piece too. If he would play it like this young pianist, I would say it is enough of practicing, but... Now, give me some more tissues, I need them to fight the combination of sneezing, running nose, and tears maybe? ;D
