tempo

The main problem Z has with playing the piano is keeping the proper tempo. She tends to want to speed up and so doesn't hold the notes for long enough, like a half note she usually plays like a dotted quarter note.

So all this week I have had her play her songs saying "One and Two and Three and Four and" aloud and with the right notes. Today I let her play one song while saying it in her head and she did a good job. I don't know if this will take but it can't hurt.

I asked Pere if maybe we should talk to her piano teacher and let her know that we don't see Z becoming a professional classical pianist. But that we can see her writing music - not sure what type, right now it seems like musicals. I wonder if that would change whatever plans she might have in her own mind (if she has any.)

He said that he didn't think we needed to do that and he is probably right. It would probably sound weird to her to hear me say that I see my five year old writing songs when she is older. But from here it seems quite possible.

This morning she asked if she could play her own stuff for awhile (on the piano) and I said sure anda little while later I realized that the music I was listening to was quite good, very melodic and soothing, and that Z was playing it. She played for a long time and it was very nice, kind of like slow jazz. I was one of the best things I have ever heard her make up.

So far she doesn't usually make up lyrics to sing while she is making her own music on the piano. She has kept that separate. I don't think she can play the piano well enough to sing along because I think much of what she plays is really just discovering. When she sings I think her tunes are more deliberate.


Here is a picture of Z last Halloween, she had just started playing piano.