A few weeks ago, I had the distinguished honor of attending my daughter’s 2nd piano recital. Gracie has been taking piano lessons for a while now, although she exists in this intense dichotomy of loving taking the lessons while hating having to practice. No joke: there have been many intense negotiations with her at the house about doing her practice, sometimes so emotionally charged that all parties agree to a temporary “time-out” period before reconvening talks.
But all of the hardline politics my 9-year old chooses to employ when coming to a collective bargaining agreement on practice time is easily forgiven whenever I see her actually playing the song in full, especially when it’s on a proper grand piano (that costs three times as much as May and I make in a year, no less). The sound is sonorous and a nice change of pace from the full-sized keyboard that was lent to us by May’s parents, a classic electric keyboard that time-traveled all the way from 1995, coming complete with its own built-in diskette drive! Technology!
To be fair, said keyboard is in excellent shape and has served us very well. Really, the full-sized aspect is the best thing about it, and it even has a small plug-in pedal that Gracie has been able to practice with. Naturally, though, I think what Gracie enjoys the most is being able to swap around between the sound bank of instruments as she is playing, so we go from classical piano, to accordion, to synthetic strings, to drum kit #124. Nothing says somber, beautiful music like hearing the piece played with hand claps and cymbal crashes.
On the day of the recital, my wife, mother-in-law, and I went over a bit early with Gracie to grab “the good seats.” The performance area is held in the music school itself, part of a strip mall that includes the standard strip mall elements of a Martial Arts school, Chinese take-out, and an insurance agent’s office. The music school itself has several smaller rooms for the students to work with the instructors, but there is a larger room that actually opens up into the waiting area, allowing for about 30 or so people to attend.
The front row is reserved for the musicians, and I noticed last time that the kids were seated in order of simplest music to most complex, which, I realized, is really smart. That way, you start with the lower level pieces and work your way up, so that you don’t put a kid in a position where they are playing chopsticks after another kid just finished “Flight of the Bumblebee.”
The rest of the seating was first-come first-served, and we had arrived early enough to settle in where we could see Gracie’s face in profile and also her hands while she played – very important for the obligatory cell phone photos/videos that were to be taken.
Now, the last time we went, the recital was just piano players, but this time, it was a cornucopia of various instruments and performers. Only about half of the kids were piano players, and the rest were made up of violin players, a cello player, a saxophone player, and a couple of vocalists. One of the little girls who sang had selected “Somewhere That’s Green” as her piece, and I remember lighting up when I placed it as being from the soundtrack of “Little Shop of Horrors.” I was so impressed with the pick that I had to keep myself from leaping up and applauding the choice.
One thing I love about these things is that in a world where people feel compelled to trounce others in order to raise themselves up, it was refreshing to just bask in the innocent and earnest talent that the kids put on. Sure, there were wrong notes here and there and unexplained tempo shifts, but these were not mistakes, merely intuitive avant garde improvisations. And, I have a lot of respect for the kids that do this – it’s not easy to get up and play in front of a group of people, especially when most of them are strangers, and even more especially when you know you are going to make some mistakes. It’s a courage I wish I had for myself, and just seeing my daughter play is always going to be enough to make my heart swell with overly-sentimental paternal pride.
Gracie's piece was Minuet in G Major by Bach, so I was pretty jazzed for this as Bach remains my personal favorite composer (although P.D.Q. Bach certainly deserves to be in that conversation). Also, while I have heard snippets and segments of the music when she practices, I don’t get to hear the entire thing all that often. So, listening to her play it fully, on the aforementioned grand piano no less, just made me happy and warm inside. She played far better than I could, and as I said earlier, it was one of those moments that makes all of the hassle and confrontations worthwhile. Plus, it brings forth images of her starting her own monetized YouTube channel of which I can be the protective and shrewd manager.
Oh, and the last performer was a kid who was much older than the rest, like around 16. It was odd just in that there was such a gap, going from 6-12 year olds, and then we jump forward to the age of driving licenses. I wondered if it was something where others his age had the choice of playing but declined, or if he was just the oldest kid at the school. Regardless, he did not disappoint: he played the piano and sang at the same time, covering “Lullaby” from Billy Joel – again, when I realized his selection, I had to refrain from clapping without abandon as he was doing Long Island proud by choosing a song from the island’s own treasured son – LI represent!
We wrapped up with some pictures of the kids holding up their official certificates for performing, a shot of Gracie behind the velvet rope and with the Grace Music School backdrop, and then we celebrated witnessing such an explosion of cultural marvels, following in the footsteps of the great virtuoso Liszt.
Except instead of imbibing outrageous amounts of alcohol, I think we just hit up an IHOP.
This is a touching column. I'm glad that Gracie has such musical talent and is sharing it with the world. Good for her!
BTW, the drawing is beautiful. Is it one of yours?