This picture before and after I got ready for my Theme Concert. I guess is not hard to guess I am Anakin from the movie Star Wars.
I played may the force be with you. The video is below
Such a wonderful presentation considering they only had 4 practices. Kids love to be part of this choir and I am very happy.
I was amazed by the dedication of the leaders and how the work with the kids and teach them the right way to sign. They put attention to the details and make it worth it. Kids are learning how to sign and read the notes. That makes it all worth it for me specially because I can hear them talking about not going to high while singing as the notes clearly point they are in the D string. And how they go to the piano to check the right pitch for that part.
In our musical journey we always set many goals we want to accomplish. I always set daily goals, weekly goals and monthly goals. Once a year we get to celebrate our accomplishment once they move to the next book. This year it was not the exception but the reward they requested was a very peculiar one. They both wanted to have a youtube channel so they can upload the videos we take weekly. After a long consideration I concluded this was a great idea and a win-win situation for all of us.
My conditions were simple. First they needed to learn the basic of camera handling, lights, aperture etc. Second before they could upload any video, such video needed to be approved by either Mom or Papa. As you can imagine, I have setup the standards quite high and the pieces needs to be good in all aspects for me to approve it.
So I will keep you posted in our new adventure.
He is going 1K miles per hour. I guess this is normal when you have two older siblings and you want to do everything they do. It is kind of funny how he is always in the middle and always expecting to have the same things his siblings have no matter what it is.
Among the numerous challenges that parents face in handling children’s music lessons, getting kids to practice is the most daunting of all. Our strategy was transforming practicing into a rewarding activity, by reaching daily/weekly/monthly/yearly musical goals. For example, instead of saying 60 minutes of practice, I will say, “Today the goal of practicing is to play the first ten measures of your piece without any mistakes (or the red section as we like to color our music to make it more interesting to their eyes).” Since I know the part she/he is struggling, I will be sure she/he will play such part, usually over 10 times, until it is perfected. Whether reaching this goal takes 15 minutes or 75 minutes is not important, what is important is that she/he knows the musical goal and feels motivated to be as efficient as possible while practicing in order to reach that goal.
“If the attitude of the mother changes, then the attitude of the child will also change”—Suzuki
These caricatures were made as a reward for their extra efforts. We set our 3 months goal (for example how many new pieces she/he would master by the end of the period) and they know the only way to reach such goal is by practicing. To my surprise the goal setup for the caricature was reached ahead of time.
Until them .. the Ninja Mom
If you love to take videos and want to edit them, it is imperative you learn how to use Final Cut Pro. Since they dropped their prices substantially I though it was about time to buy it and learn it.
The future plans is that once they are confortable using Final Cut Pro, we will learned how to use Adobe Premiere Pro in order to create real world productions.
My favorite Final Cut Pro tutorials are the following:
My name is Matthew.I love playing the violin and I love making videos. Thank you for stopping by and please come back soon...
My name is Genesis.I started playing the violin when I was 5 years old. I enjoy playing along with my brother and making videos with him...
