piano teachers

Our beloved piano teacher retired at the end of the last school year. Since then, I have taken on the role as “Mrs. Piano Teacher” in our house.  And although I would love to say I was ultra successful and all of my children are now virtuosos, we all realized after one semester that probably a real piano teacher may be able to take them a little further in their piano careers (ok, Dave and I decided that, the kids were pleased as punch with my lackadaisical teaching methods). I will say, in my defense, that my dear Claire started piano with me as her teacher and she currently knows a LOT of songs and even a duet with Grace.  I have to pat myself on the back at least for that little fact. But it was time to hire someone new and he started last week.  He comes to our house and is definitely jazzing up our piano routine around here.  Elle and Max are waiting until after volleyball and tennis seasons to get more serious about piano, but Claire and Grace are in with the new teacher full-swing which we are all happy about. At Christmas time I was determined to hold our own family piano recital to showcase what the kids have been working on and memorizing for the last six months.  But Christmas and all the hoopla that came along with it passed and still there was no piano recital.  So last month I finally pulled it together.  Dave happened to be in China, but I had a sneaking suspicion that he wouldn’t be too heartbroken if we did it without him (he joined in on “facetime” on the phone). This was my favorite moment from the recital: Lucy also decided that she needed to do a little solo at the end (despite the fact that she had been home from school sick that day and you can tell from her raspy voice…): Christmas songs are still living strong around here as you can see. Anyway, the whole night made me happy I had that snippet of time to teach my children a few new things.  Love them.