An evening of Jazz

Another year has rolled by.

Was fortunate to be back here in the US in time to see Jr.'s final annual performance as part of her school Jazz band.

Given all the other finals she has, this is one thing she really enjoys doing! I for one am glad that she has music in her life. 

Videos of the songs their ensemble group played are below..

She is definitely getting more confidence as time goes by. Hope she keeps playing.. and more importantly keeps enjoying music!

Jr. tries to play the Veena

The next stop on our 2015 year end trip was to Suresh mama's house. Let posterity note that we stayed with them for days and did not make a flying visit!

As soon as we reached Suresh Mama's (uncles) house, the first thing Jr. saw was the nice Veena sitting in their family room. His mom plays the Veena and she let Jr. try it and was giving her a quick lesson. 

Jr. loved it so much that she asked to say there and play while we wanted to keep traveling. We had to pull her off the Veena.

By day 2, she got the hang of it and with more coaching from Amala paati she was able to play "Vara Veena" 

Now she wants us to buy her a Veena.

Guess nothing beats a Tanjavoor Veenai, to get a kid hooked to Carnatic music!

Calming your nerves

There are a lot of things that we get introduced to when we come to a different country. In terms of music, movies, art, culture. Even after being in the United states for more than a dozen years, I had never heard of a legend when it came to songs for children.

When Jr. went to a Montessori school three years ago, she came home one day and was singing a song which went something like:

Down by the bay
where the watermelons grow
I dont know
my mother will say
etc. etc

in broken sentences. She would sing it with absolute happiness on her face and would manage the broken words in a melodious tone.

The lyrics did not make any sense to me and after asking her to sing slowly, could still not identify the song. So the next day, we go ask her teacher:

"What is this song she is singing about watermelons growing and whales?" and the teacher looks at me with absoulute disbelief and says "That's Raffi!! How come you don't know Raffi?!"

It was as though I had claimed not to know Jesus! Told the teacher that we really had never heard of Raffi, and asked her to show me the CD cover.

We then got that Raffi CD, which played in the van non stop for almost a year. It had its "velli vizha" (silver jubilee function), not because Jr. insisted on playing that CD, but the entire family liked that CD! We were all hooked by that unbelievable voice, which was backed only by a single guitar. The songs were all nursery rhyme style, but goofy in terms of the lyrics and the singing. (Incidentally this music had been released around the time when I was Jr.'s age!!).

Have been searching for youtube videos of Raffi for some time.

We now chanced on videos of Raffi in Concert.

Compensating now for the fact that, we missed Raffi, when we were little kids. This afternoon, Jr. was playing this on youtube and it put me to sleep.

If you have your nerves all frayed because you have had a long week, "Raffi" might be the answer to your prayers!

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