Saturday C&D attended a Suzuki workshop. None of us really knew what to expect, except that there would be a lot of children and we needed to show up at noon. Oh, and at the end there would be a concert of the students demonstrating what they had learned.
In the first session, C&D danced and played with about twenty children and a Dalcroze instructor. In the second, they received a semi-private lesson from a violin instructor. For the last, they prepared for their role in the concert. The instructor explained that the children–a few young students and a group of children from a school outside the city–were going to practice a rhyme with their bow, set their violins on their shoulders, play a short E-string concerto and then play all five Twinkle rhythms on the E string. Matt and I stood up from our seats at the back of the room. C&D had never set their violins on their own shoulders and hadn’t practiced all five rhythms. This was going to be interesting.
As concert time approached we watched C&D struggle to place their violins on their shoulders. The instructor moved quickly and they couldn’t figure out how she moved the violin from the crook of her right elbow to her left hand and then, what? She put the violin on her head, slid the button of the violin to her ear, and then slid the violin to her shoulder. C&D turned their violins over and around, placed them on their shoulders and then scrunched over their instruments, trying not to drop them. After a few go-rounds they could manage well enough.
With a few minutes left to the class, the students began practicing playing their Twinkle rhythms as a group. An accompanist played the piano part, the instructor played the melody to one of the five variations of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, and the students were supposed to follow along on the E string only, E-E-E-E E-E. I watched C&D follow along and after the second variation, I noticed David using the other strings, and then using the fingerboard, too,
on the violin we just got on Wednesday,
that doesn’t even have tape on it to tell him where to press,
and despite the fact he doesn’t even know how to play Twinkle, Twinkle, anyway.
The violins hadn’t all been tuned and with noise plus the squeaky chaos of the day I grew nauseous. But I couldn’t help smiling, big. After the practice David handed me the violin and said full of pride, “I played all the notes! And it sounded really GOOD!”
We packed up our instruments and rushed to the concert. When after several performances it was their turn Carmen slid off my lap and smiled; she had been waiting for this moment all afternoon. She and David walked up onto the stage with about forty other children and began to play.
First, the E Concerto (this video is about a minute). Love Carmen’s shoes?
A higher resolution (and slower to download!) version of the same thing:
And then the five Twinkle variations on the E string. This video is about five minutes. Notice David going all Andre Rieu on us not even halfway through.
A higher resolution (and slower to download!) version of the same thing:
Is this how it is, being four, almost five? Carmen and David aren’t limiting themselves to growing up to become the audience. They see themselves on a stage of no bound, bringing music and movement of their own to the world. I’ve loved their being four; some mornings, when we’re all in bed and giggling, I wish they could stay four forever. But then I wonder–what are they going to teach me when they’re five?
I can find the most wonderful non-news on the web page for Houston’s only major newspapaper, the Houston Chronicle. Mostly this is because Chron.com lists posts from their bloggers as news. One of their best is kept by Kyrie O’Connor, the newspaper’s deputy managing editor. I can’t imagine what her job looks like, but she somehow finds time to post interesting pop-culturey bits that she’s discovered or that people have sent to her.
Today she posted a music video by the band OK Go. While I was in grad school OK Go released a cover called “Antmusic.” I loved it maybe especially because those in the lab adjacent to me studied, among other things, social insects. You know, like ants.
You don’t have to appreciate a thing about social insects to like the video for a song off their new album. Give it a watch and a listen. I think I’ve found my anthem for 2010.
Some of last week’s art work. Most were cut on tissue paper—the tissue was hard for C&D to fold, but easy to cut. My favorite were made out of old work drawings, however. C&D made all of them except for a couple, you can probably guess which.
Monday we found on sale a printer/scanner/fax that handles legal-size images. It arrived today. Now I can print color materials, even posters, directly rather than waiting on the copy shop. Now I can more easily receive and send faxes; even if they are SO twenty years ago, I am still asked for a fax number often. Now I scan my favorite of C&D’s projects and pictures.
Like David’s stage picture. It’s been stuck with magnets on the kitchen bulletin board for a month; Matt and I can’t bear to toss it.
The Wednesday morning after the winter City Dance concert, C&D and I were as usual busy with violin lessons. When David finished I handed him a sheet of stickers to quietly use while Carmen received her lesson and I took notes.
After a couple of minutes he started bugging me about something. He whisper-shouted a question that I couldn’t make out because I was wearing earplugs.* I put my finger to my lips. He pointed to his sticker sheet and asked me another question. I put my mouth to his ear. “Shhhhh. Later.” He leaned his face forward and I pulled out the earplugs.
“Mommy, I need more . . .” He pointed at his sheet of stickers.
“Later!”
When he began whining and hanging off me like a chimpanzee off a vine, I shot him a you’re-driving-me-nuts look and handed him another sheet of stickers. I put my finger back over my lips and raised an eyebrow. David sat down and I turned back to the lesson. The deal was one sheet of stickers after the violin lesson, but I’d deal with it later.
I forgot about it, of course. Our violin teacher left, I gave Carmen her own sheet of stickers, and then started to heat lunch. The house was quiet. I began to relax.
“Look, Mommy!” David cried as he ran into the kitchen.
Those ballerinas in the middle were from the two sheets of stickers I had given David during the violin lesson. According to David they’re on the stage of Hamman Hall, where the weekend’s concert happened; the blue above the picture is the curtain, and the triangular shapes hanging over the stage are spotlights (the lights are colored yellow). Coming off the Hamman Hall stage was a set of stairs, and there are the people in their seats, watching the performance and smiling.
True to his style, the whole thing was made out of three sheets of scrap paper. I’m guessing he made the stage and cut it out. Then he figured he needed a curtain, so he glued one at the top. When he decided he needed an audience, he drew them out, cut them out along with the stairs, and then stuck that on, too.
He placed it in my hands gently and I held it at arm’s length. “I love it,” I said.
Like they have on and off for the past month, local temperatures are going to dip below freezing tonight. That’s why, naturally, I just killed a mosquito in my bedroom? I guess it’s never too cold to get a mosquito bite on your forehead.
After being sick since Tuesday, Carmen is more energetic today. David, too, although he still leaves a trail of used tissues everywhere he goes. Right before bed they are angling for a pony.
“My size,” Carmen explains. “The head needs to be here,” she demonstrates as she holds her hand to her forehead. “And it needs to be like this,” marking a line just below her waist, “so I can ride it.” We can fence the pony in upstairs, she argues when I remind her we’ve no pasture, and just throw some hay down. She runs around in circles to show that the pony has plenty of leg room. I try to explain that’s not really a good idea, with the wood floors and all. Carmen says she can Potette-train the pony. “We can build a fence out front,” David offers, “With Daddy’s wood.” I suggest it’s still not enough room. (Nevermind that our so-called front yard is entirely a city easement, nevermind that, well, nevermind.) David points with his muffin. “We can ax this wall here!” I imagine David hacking at the sheetrock and studs beneath, as if he were part of a radical home-improvement show. Somehow from there we wander down to bed. I’m about to get settle into bed; Carmen smiles and asks for an extra bedtime snack. Stinker.
Meanwhile, Matt and I are smack dab in the middle of our nasty New Year’s virus. We’re both feverish and congested, tired and not up for thinking very hard. But thinking about ponies is pretty pleasant. I remember a real estate listing that I spotted over the weekend. The three-acre Fort Bend property along one of our old bike routes includes a dance studio, complete with pine floors and two heights of ballet bars installed along the walls. And even, as Hyacinth Bucket likes to boast, room for a pony.
We have something nasty at our house. The flu? A really bad cold?
C&D are spending a lot of their time horizontal on the furniture or even on the floor. (But not the bed . . . too many connotations of sleep there!) I totally understand—I’m sick, too.
Now and then, though, we all have little bursts of energy. I clean, C&D dance. Or, for the past week or so, we sit down and cut snowflakes.
C&D are awesome snowflake-cutters, but we’re having a small paper crisis. The paper I have on hand is mostly too thin or too thick. Snowflakes are easier to cut when the paper is thick enough to fold sharply, but thin enough to cut through several layers. If I remember right, shiny gold or silver wrapping paper is just about right. If you have any leftover from Christmas or see any while you’re out and about this week, I’m sure C&D would appreciate it if you sent some along. To send the roll just wrap it up in brown paper, and then use postcalc.USPS.gov to calculate postage for a package. In thanks C&D can send you some snowflakes back. :)
