Back in Fall, 2018, I decided that I needed to let go of something, and we decided that something needed to be piano. I gave warning to my students that after the school year ended in May, I wouldn't be teaching anymore. About half of my students quit around the time I made my announcement, and so I only had about five students by the time our spring recital came around. I didn't feel like it was worth renting a hall for such a small and short recital. Always scheming up solutions for things like this, I tried to think of ways that we could just have the recital at our house, but our piano was in our small front office, and it wasn't really conducive to a recital. As May approached, I decided that with lessons ending, it really made more sense to put the piano downstairs. I was tired of the kids pounding on it while I was trying to work, and I figured we'd use it more for things like Family Home Evening and impromptu recitals if it was downstairs in the family room. So, I arranged for movers to take our huge, 100-year-old player piano down into our basement during the week between my last lesson and the recital. It was really interesting to watch how they did it. They took it through our great room, out onto our deck, and then leap-frogged boards to get it all the way across our back yard to where the steps to our basement patio are. They took them downstairs, leap-frogged the boards across our turf on the patio, and finally brought it through the doors downstairs and against the wall in it's new home.
My students really loved our group lessons, and just how it worked out with everyone's schedules, I decided to have a half-hour group lesson leading up to our last piano recital. We played my interval game on my giant felt keyboard, which is probably their favorite game. I tell them an interval, and the first one to make it wins. We used to do it in teams, but this time, since there were only a few of them, we played it more of a "king of the hill" style.
When my one girl student went, we had to stick to seconds and thirds, since she was in a dress. They were all a little disappointed by that since they all like diving on the board to do a 7th or an octave.
Rachel performed, but for some reason, we don't have a picture of her performing.
I did a duet or two for the recital,
and I finally learned "Fur Elise" in its entirety, something that I have always wanted to do, but had yet to do. I made a ton of mistakes, but felt pretty good about the whole thing.
I'm going to miss seeing these guys regularly. I mean, I'll see Rachel still, since I'm still teaching her...and of course she's also my daughter.
At the end of May, Rachel had her big dance recital. Naturally, we took way too many pictures of her in her outfit.
I got a little confused about the time. I thought it started at 6:30, and that the doors opened at 6. When we arrived at 6, we were horrified to discover that the recital was starting!! I still hadn't finished putting Rachel's lipstick on, and I had forgotten to paint her nose (they were supposed to be tigers). I rushed her backstage and tracked down make up to paint her nose. In my frazzled-ness, I painted it too much, blackening the entire nose instead of just the front. (By the way, I have yet to get Rachel to a recital where I'm not feeling completely frazzled and stressed, so for anyone who comes to these performances with me, please forgive my distraction and inattentiveness. I promise I'm not upset with you, and after the performance, I'll let you know how grateful I am that you came! I just haven't figured out how to focus on anything else but my tiny dancer on performance days yet). Nana barely made it in time to see Rachel dance, and I just felt terrible about missing such an important detail. She didn't let it phase her too much though, and she danced with her whole heart and huge smile.
Brian and I had been thinking of changing dance studios during the months and especially weeks leading up to the recital. While we love Rachel's teacher, who puts her whole soul into her studio, the style of dance that she teaches isn't exactly what we were wanting to do. I especially wanted to get Rachel into a studio that focused more on ballet since ballet is the major foundation for most dance styles. Also, a friend of mine who was a dancer in her youth told me that when deciding on a dance studio, you should look at the older girls to see the quality of the instruction. While watching the older girls perform, we couldn't help but notice how the dances were more of the style you'd see cheerleaders do. While that is fine and good, it wasn't the direction we wanted to go with Rachel. After the recital, Brian said, "Yeah, let's switch studios." Rachel was sad to leave her friends behind, and I was sad to have to drive further (this studio is in our neighborhood!), but it has been a good decision. Still, Rachel really rocked her last recital with this teacher, and we enjoyed seeing all her creativity and devotion one last time.
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