I am on the road today driving down to Peoria for the Peoria Bach Festival. They are already in the midst of a full week of performances, lectures, and Bach-related events, and I will be playing Friday and Saturday nights in a J.S. Bach Orchestral Suite and the Easter Oratorio. Beautiful, difficult, fun music in a nice little town with friendly people. If you are in the area, come and check this out!
I've mentioned before that I started out on the piano by figuring out melodies. Connecting notes and trying to learn how they worked. I'm fascinated to observe that Zoe's initial approach to the instrument is totally different from mine. She sits at our new piano and plays random notes, and tells us what to feel. If she is playing slowly then the music is sad, and we should cry. When we are "crying" she either gets up and hugs us so we feel better (so awesome!) or bangs faster, to indicate that the music is now happy and we should dance. Her other piano game is accompanying herself - she plays "chords" in alternating hands while she "sings" the ABC song or Camptown Races or Sesame Street. She makes us sing along. She loves it when we clap at the end. When I was little I wanted to know how music worked. Although I make my living as a performer now, I learned about the interpersonal aspects of music later. Her immediate interest is in ...
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