Sunday, December 20, 2009

Maestro

Big Kid had his first mini violin performance at his teacher's Christmas party yesterday.

I've got to say...I was nervous for him. I wasn't sure we were ready. I considered canceling (a lot).

But we practiced every night and decided to do it.

He was the first to play and as he walked in front up to the front of the room, he was as pale as his shirt and his little lips were pressed into a nervous little line.

But he did it! He played 4 variations of Twinkle Twinkle, did a great job and enjoyed the applause. He bowed at the end and was the epitome of adorable.

The other students were older and more experienced, and it was nice to talk to their parents. I get the feeling they're all a little more hardcore than we are about it--lots of talk about colleges (at 8 and 10 and 12). We figure he has his whole life to learn so if there's a night where practice doesn't seem feasible or he's just not on top of his game, oh well. If he bitches about practicing, I remind him that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to be good at something and ask if he wants to be good. Usually, he ends up deciding to practice.

His teacher and her boyfriend both play for the Philharmonic and the boyfriend mentioned that he had wanted to play basketball during high school but was told he couldn't do both. Yeah, it worked out well since he's professionally employed as a violinist and is insanely talented but I could tell he was still bummed he didn't get to try basketball. I don't want it to be like that--I want Big Kid to play violin because he wants to but I want him to get to try other things as well. He does one half an hour lesson a week right now and I may look into doing 45 minutes every 2 weeks in 2010 instead. I don't want him to think I chose this as his life path when he was 5, he's free to check out other activities.

The two teachers played some songs together and it was awesome; it totally had me teary-eyed. It was pretty cool to be enjoying a private concert by Philharmonic violinists in their living room. It is also cool that they are a couple and can make music like that together.

So, Big Kid did well and is pretty proud of himself. I've been jokingly calling him Maestro lately and he's requested that I go ahead and call him that full time from here on out. I was going to videotape it all for you but I ran out of batteries midway through (DOESN'T IT FIGURE?). Maybe he'll do a private performance for us.

5 comments:

jennyandcompany said...

aw, I would love to see him play! maybe that's what you can give us for Christmas :)

I talked my step-mil into buying guitar lessons for my 9yo b/c he bought a guitar with his birthday money, but now he decided that's boring. Tough shit, he's going to take the lessons and like it ;) Or at least pretend to when they ask.

Misty said...

That's great that he got up in front of everyone and played!!

I couldn't have!! I would have peed my pants. lol

Chacoy said...

How awesome for Maestro Big Kid!!
Jesus Christ Ashley, I thought that this of all posts would have had at least a picture of Maestro!
Get with it!LOL It just figures with all of the other shit we have going on that we forget one damn thing, the batteries:} I am extremely happy for him, it takes a lot of balls to get up in front of people and play- especially when they are more "experienced" and going to go to Jilliard and shit!!

Anonymous said...

If you are going to be the mother of a Maestro, you're going to have to get your act together with the batteries. I mean, really..... :)

Susan in Texas

Angela Tolsma said...

That's fabulous he played well. Awesome that the teacher played too!!