Practice!

One month from tomorrow, Dylan will participate in a Dennis Alexander piano competition.  I'm not really sure how we got to this point and sometimes I wonder why, but it is all arranged and it will be an interesting new experience for him.  Sometime back in May, his teacher and I took him off of the course books to see how he would do with more challenging music including several Dennis Alexander pieces.  One thing led to another and before long, he had chosen one of the competition pieces, Falling Leaves, a romantic song.  Their second piece has to contrast with the Dennis Alexander song so he has been working on a faster paced Bartok song.  That one has been a bit more difficult, especially with the rapid chord changes in the left hand.  Sometimes, when I am watching him play basketball or soccer and he has the ball, my heart beats a little faster as I see the other boys running towards him to get the ball.  I imagine that it might be necessary to have paramedics waiting outside of this piano competition in case I faint dead away! :)  Success is measured in many different ways and we all hope for success for our children.  I will consider it a huge success for him to sit at that fancy piano with an audience watching him and simply make it through his two songs and do his personal best.

Here he is playing his two songs below.  We still have one month and a bit more work to do, but he is progressing every day.  I'm not sure I buy into "perfecting" a piano piece.  It seems like there are always more ways to improve and fixing one part seems to bring out opportunities to "fix" other parts as well.  Playing with feeling, speeding up, slowing down--all of these things are hard for an eight year old boy.  I am just so proud that he has come this far!