Dayton's First Piano Recital

Dayton has been playing piano for almost 4 months.  He LOVES playing.  I can't emphasize the LOVE enough.

Our Piano Stud

Dayton is excited to practice everyday, and gets upset if we miss a day.  When we get home from preschool, he runs to the piano and wants to practice right away.  My mom has reminded me that getting me to practice piano as a child was a major chore (I took lessons for about 1.5 years), so I know Dayton's enthusiasm for piano is a blessing.  When he first began, he most enjoyed the homework (counting and drawing notes in his workbook), and the piano work was a bit of a struggle.  Now he still doesn't mind the homework, but playing songs is his true love.  He practices 7 or 8 songs each week, and by the end of some weeks, he has memorized his favorite song.  He has also mastered 12 notes, knowing them by name, placement on the piano, and by sight on the grand staff music sheet. 

For his recital songs, his teacher gave him a difficult song 5 weeks before the recital hoping that he could master it by then.  The song was Twinkle Twinkle Little Star with both hands playing simultaneously.  Dayton had never done that before, so it took quite a bit of practice.  We practiced each hand alone, then put them together two measures at a time.  After weeks of practice, Dayton mastered and memorized his new favorite song.  He took the sheet music to school for Show & Tell so he could play for everyone.  He was surprised the other day when I told him that it's the same tune as the ABCs, so now he sings both songs when he plays.  His second recital song was Song of Joy, a small piece of Beethoven's 9th Symphony.  That song was right where he was practicing in his lesson book.  Dayton played perfectly at his recital tonight.  For Dayton's special day, he got cinnamon rolls for breakfast, ice cream after school, and too many desserts at the recital.

Dayton playing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Song of Joy

 

Dayton with the other performers- 

he is the youngest student by a few years

 Dayton with his Teacher Michelle (she is 8 months pregnant)

Michelle has been such a great, patient teacher for him.  Often during his lesson, Dayton loses focus and starts playing piano and using the pedals while Michelle is trying to talk to him, so she asks him to put his hands in his lap while she's talking.  It works!  Michelle explains things in a fun, simple way to him, and she uses correct terminology so he has learned great piano vocabulary.

We definitely intend to continue piano in Boston.  However, we don't have a piano, so we are bringing my mom's keyboard and hoping he can practice on that.  Maybe we'll get lucky and score a cheap piano from Craigslist.