The highlight of my week was Thursday evening. Arianna has piano lessons, and has come a long way. She doesn’t prefer to read the music, and has developed a great ear.

Some time ago, she was practicing a song, and started on the wrong note and accidentally played in a minor key. We had just finished a conversation about what it means to play in a major key and a minor key, and I asked her why she thought she was playing it wrong. She said, “Well, it sounds sad”. I told her THAT is what a minor key is, and told her to keep playing the song that way, the sad way. So, she figured out the rest of the song in this minor key, and then played it correctly in the major key, and began to switch between the two.

Thus encouraged, she likes to learn a song, then change the key, and sometimes change the feel from major to minor. Sometimes, it sounds like the modulation in a video game when you ‘level up’, so that’s what we say when we want her to modulate the song” Level it up, Arianna!” She likes this, because you can’t read this from her lesson music; you have to invent it.

Meanwhile, during her lessons, I play on the pianos in the store, often without music. I tend to get lots of compliments from other students, and even her teacher. SO, this week, Arianna apparently was showing off this talent for her piano teacher, using Carol of the Bells, and when she came out of the room, her teacher was beaming at me, telling me that Arianna has such a good ear and talent for this sort of thing, changing the song and still play it right. Her teacher finished by telling me “Yes, she is definitely your daughter!”