The little one improves over time..

Have barely got back from India and still settling into the routine before work travel catches up again.. 

Got a chance to take the little one to her violin recital as part of the music studio. She has definitely improved over time..

Here is a video of select parts of what she played..

and finally she obliged for a selfie in the car with me. There was going to be no photographs with me as I went against her wishes and shaved my head.. the beanie has saved me! 

She definitely made me proud.. as usual we had the conversation about "if only she had practiced a little more, she would have gotten it perfect!" and as usual there was the eye rolling going on in the back seat.. 

in the words of the kids "we are good!"... apparently that means "No, thank you!"

Still figuring things out. . . 

A parallel track..

While I have been doing things with San and Jr. , the little one has been busy in her own way.. 

She had her annual violin recital with Andre Music studio, where she studies outside the school orchestra. This year they performed with two other schools at the Trinon theater in Downtown San Jose. 

She loves playing the Violin and that makes me so happy to see her play. Sometimes she gets that dreamy look in her eyes that says she is lost in the music and I feel that my job as a dad is at least half done as long as my kids have music in their lives!

Two photos that pretty much captured the event for me.. 

She got to receive the award for the group and I was happy to capture that smile. She has a beautiful smile, but it is so rare to capture it.. it is like that flower that blooms once every 12 years.. have to keep watching for it..

The recording of the event is very long.. here are a few snippets of the different pieces they played, some with the studio and others with all studios.. 

It is my sincere hope that she keeps playing, if not for others, at least for herself. 

She recently asked me sarcastically "like you play the guitar for yourself?" and I said "I dont have time to play the guitar these days, but if I want to, I can pick it up and start playing!" which was said in haste.. it will take me some time to get back to where I left off..  

hopefully she keeps playing without a hiatus.

A violin recital

We interrupt the Deepavali / Diwali programming to bring you a violin recital.. the Little One (now she is a teen-y little one) did her recital as part of her music school. 

She knows this by heart, but was a little timid while playing. Getting used to a Piano that is not in your control can be an interesting experince, or so I thought.. 

Here is a video.. 

this was at the Valley Christian school. I had no idea that there is such a beautiful "school" overlooking the valley. This place was like brand new.. still amazed by the view from the school.. 

The little one is doing better every year.. the name of the game is to stay in the game. I keep telling her that! 

Here's to her keeping at it..

Progress.. slow and steady

No.. not a yoga post.

The little one continues her violin practice and has definitely made progress, the slow and steady way!

Her cooking interests take a priority over other things but she does practice twice a week at least. 

Over the weekend she performed at a Violin and Viola festival at Trinon Theater in downtown San Jose. Given I have stopped watching her in class because of my travel schedule and meeting schedule now overlapping her class... it was a treat to watch the improvement!

If you watch your kid every week, maybe not easy to see the improvement.. Watch her play after almost 6 months and you go "wow! that is a lot better now!"

There was a large group of students from multiple music schools who played 10 songs in the end for the audience. One interesting thing they did was play the theme from Game of Thrones with a Karaoke track in the background. I hope none of these kids are watching that serial as most of them are 10th graders or lower. I tried watching it on United when I got upgraded to Biz class once after hearing so much about it from other folks who are fans. Had to turn it off after a few minutes because of the violence and sex. The entire thing was pretty much that.

They played that well though!

Hope the kids keep up their engagement with music. It is not easy to post anything on Youtube which has copyrighted material. They promptly stop the video and I have to go agree to things before it comes online. However same thing is not true for content from my blog that gets copied over! Sad.. bigly sad. That is the world we live in.

where were we? Yes. Violin playing... 

Here is to many more years of music in the kids lives!

The little one and her Violin

Last week was a busy week. We also had the little one doing her summer recital as part of Galina Andre's music school. It was in a nice theater in downtown San Jose. 

She has improved a lot, now that she plays the violin every day in school. Before she was only taking lessons once a week and practicing twice a week. Now that it is a daily thing, she has more confidence and we can see the transformation from a shy hesitant kid to someone who goes for it!

She made me very proud. I am sure there will be videos from the music school.. I took a few videos of the final group perfromances and they are below.

Glad she likes the school and glad she loves to play! Makes my day to watch her practice on her own without me having to sit there and turn pages on the notebook or be the stand for no reason!

Let's see what one more year will bring!