Music and Fall in the air!

This is the first time we have felt fall-like weather in 4 years. It's awesome. Very crisp mornings, but beautiful days. As I was walking with the kids to school this week though, I realized that I really do not have attire for this climate. Flip-flops and capris have pretty much been it. That's going to have to change!

Now on to the main subject of this post: Music! I don't know that I've ever really posted about this so I thought I'd say a bit about our backgrounds in music and why it is important to us that our kids learn.

I do not come from a musical family. I'm the only one of my siblings who plays an instrument (a few of us do sing though), and I didn't start until I was 10. I always loved the piano and wanted to play, but we didn't have one in our home. When I went to friends homes I'd play theirs, and finally I heard of a piano teacher who was really cheap - I think it was $1 a lesson (she was cheap for a reason, lol!) and talked my parents into letting me start lessons. We lived across the street from the church and my dad had a calling where he had a key, so I went to cheap lessons and practiced at the church.

Once my parents saw that I had potential and passion for it, they bought a piano. Looking back on it, it must have made everyone in the house crazy because I practiced a LOT. I loved it. Within a year or so I was playing well enough to play in church and soon was accompanying the school choir as well. I sort of outgrew my teacher. So...I wanted to get in with a better one, but the best one in town was too expensive for us. She was also my beehive advisor, so I made a deal with her that I would clean her house every Saturday morning and then I would get a free lesson. She corrected all the things I had learned incorrectly (which was a lot), and set me on the right path. Then we moved. I never took lessons again, so I've had a grand total of 4 years of lessons (actually probably not even that much because there was a break in there between teachers) and am mostly self-taught. I'm not that great in theory, etc. but I'm a good sight-reader and can play most anything within reason when I first see it. Definitely can not play anything at a more advanced level the way Doug can though.

I could play because I loved it and practiced a lot. By the time I was in high school, I was teaching lessons to others. I don't consider myself a strong teacher because I'm not strong on musical theory, but I'm happy to say that at least a couple of my students have gone on to get more advanced teachers and do quite well.

Music has always been an extremely calming influence for me. At times when I was nervous or upset about something, it could always bring me peace. So in a nutshell I am not a virtuoso by any means, but I do enjoy and I'm very glad I learned how to do it. It changed my life.

Now, for Doug. He started lessons when he was young, but he didn't like it at first. It wasn't until he moved to a place that he hated that he started to turn to music more (like me, I think it's a calming influence for him). He started working at it seriously in junior high and by high school he was studying with strong teachers and giving recitals, accompanying choirs...and in general, he's just a lot better than I am!

He decided to major in piano performance at Ricks, and studied under some really great teachers. While he was on his mission, he realized that a career in music was not very realistic unless he was prepared to take it to another level...and he wasn't, so he finished his associate's in music and then changed his major to the lucrative field of social work. Since then, it's been a serious hobby of his but not a career, other than teaching lessons on the side which he really enjoys (right, Doug?).

In a big way, music brought us together. I was very impressed with his "skills", and we sang in choir together and had fun with that. It's always been a big part of our relationship. We like to play duets and I like to just listen to him play.

Have you ever heard that what attracts you the most to someone is what will end up driving you crazy about them? I can see how that is true. I was very attracted initially to the musical side of Doug. I liked his commitment to it and his ability to play really difficult stuff and have it sound good (something I had never done). He didn't get this way by sitting around though, it comes with practice. And practice. And practice.

I only remember us ever having one real fight - or I guess one time where he really hurt my feelings, and yes it was because of the piano. This was when we were newlyweds and we both had a Saturday off work which was a rare thing. I really wanted for us to go do something together and I told him my plans that morning to which he said "great" and then proceeded to start playing the piano. He played for hours. Seriously. I would come in and out of the room to give him hints that I was ready. I would breathe loudly so he'd notice I was there. But he was lost in his music and I was just getting more and more peeved. Finally I just said forget it and I don't think we ended up going out and doing anything that day. That's when I realized that it's very easy for him to get lost in it and forget that anything else exists. He does love me, but don't mess with him when he wants to play the piano, lol. Most men are like this with sports, and he is with music. I've learned to live with it.

Anyway....

The girls started piano lessons this week. I think putting them in with a teacher other than Doug or me is definitely the smart thing. There are several changes in our new system that should make this whole process easier, I hope:

1. Old system: piano, tv, computer (pretty much everything in the house) was in the same room. If anyone sat down to play the piano it was bound to bug someone else who was trying to practice another instrument, watch tv, read, do homework, etc. because the house was so small that the piano monopolized the whole thing. New system: The piano has it's very own spot and there is a door that closes it off from the rest of the house. So now someone can be practicing another instrument in another room, someone else could be reading or doing homework somewhere else, and we aren't bugging each other! Great.

2. Old system: Dad attempts to teach his kids. Doug is a fantastic teacher, he really is. But it just wasn't working with him teaching his own kids. Too easy to bump lesson time for something else. Too easy to put lessons off for another week, or give a shorter lesson that what a "real" student would get. And I admittedly had a hard time enforcing practice because of the space issue mentioned in #1 above. So if I enforced practice really good one week, Doug might have had something come up and not teach a lesson that week...then another week he might give a good lesson and I turn around and fail at the practice part. We pretty much stunk at the way we were trying to do it. New system: The girls have a real teacher (who is awesome and lives really close) who they are accountable to. Now there are two practice parents. I'm good at making sure it gets done and Doug is good at helping them if they are stumped and in making sure they are playing correctly. The downside is the cost, but our teacher is very reasonable and it's really worth it.

Also, Elise started today with her new cello teacher. I think she's going to be great. She's young (a freshman in college) but she is on scholarship for cello performance and she seems very responsible. She was very good with Elise and I can see is going to challenge her much more than she's used to. When we got in the car after the lesson and I asked Elise how she liked her, she said, 'I like her, but she's HARD'. Precisely the point.

We are having a couple of problems with viola. One is finding a teacher, and the other is finding a student. Morgan has such potential with it that I hate to see her quit. But she doesn't really have the passion for it right now that Elise does for cello. I'm hoping that if I just back off, the desire will come back as she sees Elise making progress on her instrument. Then we'll get more serious about finding a teacher! The fact that we are having a hard time finding one is proof to me that she should keep with it. She'd definitely be in demand if she mastered it.

So, sorry that was long but I just wanted to give a little background into why I seem obsessed about this. I just want my kids to learn to love it as much as I do, and to be able to put me to shame (which won't be too hard. Give them a couple of years!)