Piano playing

Caitlin and I had a really fun morning playing the piano on Thursday. She likes to play and learn her own way and doesn't want a lot of help (or sometimes any help) so often I tend to wander off and leave her to it, because it seems she wants to be alone. This time though she asked me to stay, and I realised she doesn't want to be alone when she plays, she wants company and someone to throw ideas around with and someone to help her if she has a questions, and someone who won't offer unsolicited suggestions, just be there and appreciate the music she is creating. So I stayed and it was really enjoyable hanging out with her.

She wanted to play 'When the Saints Go Marching In' but there were notes in it that she hadn't played before - it was the last song in one of her piano books, so she went back to the start and played one piece from each lesson to refresh her memory on where the notes were, and we did talk a little bit about timing, then she had a go at Saints, and played it several times, singing the real words and the St Kilda team song words - then we decided to see if we could find the Collingwood team song music - I found them online and she played and memorised the song so she could play it for Tony. We played chopsticks together - she has changed some bits of it to be the way she would like, and sometimes that annoys me - then I figured it was all music and fun and I could adjust the base to fit her own version of chopsticks, and it ended up being hilarious. We mucked around too with 'Do you want to build a snowman' from Frozen - she's able to pick it up from watching her friend play it, and knows the first verse or so. She was able to show me enough that I could play it too. I prefer to read the music (I don't usually remember things by heart) so I might see if I can buy the sheet music for the movie so we can both play it - and all the other songs.

I'm feeling inspired now to find her more YouTube videos of violin pieces - she doesn't like to read music to play the violin, she likes to watch people play, so that's easy to organise. She tried several new songs on the recorder recently too, with new notes, so her overall repertoire is increasing. She tends to do it in spurts like this - play all her instruments quite a lot for a week or two, then have a break. Although, like me, she usually plays at least a little on the piano every day - its easily accessible, easy to walk in, play a tune, then continue down the hall. I know I've said it before and its worth saying again because I think it every day - I LOVE having a piano in my house and I am so grateful to G for making it possible. Thank you again!!!!