Music Video

The twins recently "graduated" from the first book of their group piano lessons.

What makes these music lessons different is that the teacher requires them to learn the solfege method, which means they sing the notes ("do re mi") out loud as they play the music. (is your family a big fan of The Music Man like our family is? In the song "Shipoopi" the singer and the chorus sing a section in solfege. And of course there is the most famous solfege in pop culture, performed by Maria and the children during "Do Re Mi" in The Sound of Music)

This has not been Harriet's cup of tea, to say the least.

But, since we started lessons last summer the twins have been good sports, attending class each week (made up mostly of kids two to three years younger than them) and performing solos in class every other week or so. And due to time factors and commitments to other priorities, we agreed that if the kids got through this book and graduated, we could take a break from music lessons for a bit.

So last week was our last week, and the kids dutifully got up in class and gave their graduation performances, which consisted of two songs sung solfege (with a cheesy accompaniment), followed by two solos played on the piano while (theoretically) singing along with solfege.

First up is Harriet, who was feeling a bit out of sorts for several reasons which included her discomfort with performing solfege, and the fact that she was dressed to be driven directly to soccer practice after the graduation, which in fact, she was. She does do a wonderful job, however:





(FYI the woman dressed in green sitting under the giant yellow "M" is Becky, Eddie's wife. Their son Trevor is on the floor in the white/black shirt)

And here's Jack's performance, always a willing sport as usual:



(doesn't it kind of make you feel like you were there?)


And for an encore, here's a typical scene around the house with three boys - Jack does attempt to play one song for us (can you name that tune?)



I have a feeling we haven't heard the last of the piano around our house...