odin has been doing awesome in piano lessons and getting high praise from his teacher. today he graduated to level 2! and I think we’ve graduated from the “uuuugggghhh! why are you making me do this stage.” he now happily claims he’d like to take lessons for “5 more years”.
i remember odin’s first piano lesson eight and a half years ago given by his great aunt on a piano in maine that had seen generations of family playing. since then, i’ve slowly been teaching odin how to play, waiting for his hands to get bigger and his concentration and attention skills to get developed enough to make proper lessons fun and not A Big Drag.
five years ago we got a piano and i taught odin scales, and intervals and simples chords and he soon could play twinkle, twinkle little star ( i remember his amusement upon realizing it was the same notes as baa baa black sheep and the alphabet song ).
odin just walked up the piano, banged out the riff to "smoke on the water" and walked away. me: "did you just make the up?" odin: "yup."
— Eric C Snowdeal III (@snowdeal) August 20, 2011
and it wasn’t too long before he was playing parts of the the pink panther theme and the imperial march by ear or “inventing” the smoke on the water intro or making up pieces that sounded like something brian eno would compose.
odin is playing piano, making it up as he goes along. reminds me of brian eno, a la music for airports http://goo.gl/YHlHJ
— Eric C Snowdeal III (@snowdeal) November 12, 2010
it’s been clear that his hands have grown along with with his attention and concentration and now is a good time to leave behind learning my chicken scratch transcriptions of school songs and get some proper lessons.
Odin ( teaching himself a tune on the piano, humming): "through the field the beggar goes, weary feet and tattered clothes…"
— Eric C Snowdeal III (@snowdeal) November 22, 2012
today he had his first lesson. he loved it, absolutely loved it, and can’t wait for the next one. i’m sure in no time at all he’ll be teaching me a thing or two.