Jr. has always skipped a few pages on the book with Carnatic music in Western notation for saxophone.
Enthused by her new instrument, she tried to play Amrithavarshini ragam this morning after playing Christmas songs.
She was not happy with her attempt but I was really impressed. For a first attempt, she is showing a lot of promise.
Hope that in a few months she can play by ear!
Wishing everyone a wonderful holiday season!
This year Jr. got a visit from her "not so secret santa" and got a new Alto Saxophone to celebrate the holidays. Her old saxophone had a rod and screw drop off after her last school performance. The part is in back order till end of January. Given she has other performances coming and the fact that she has wanted to graduate from a student saxophone to a professional grade one.. we relented! We are also tired of doing the pickup and drop off from her school because she has to haul this large saxophone case to practice. From February she can leave the student version in school and practice on the pro instrument at home!
These instruments are expensive. So this is the last one we are buying her. They tell us this will last 10-15 years. We have nicely informed Jr. that she will be buying her next saxophone with her own paycheck!
So far she loves the sound of the Yamaha YAS 62-III. It is also lighter than her student version. Why a student version will be heavier is beyond me.
The Christmas holiday has started today.
The kids were practicing their music this morning and with a lot of censoring I am pleased to announce that this version has been approved for the blog..
Our entire family wishes you a very merry Christmas and a wonderful holiday!
It has been a busy November with business and personal travel and the first two weeks of December seem to have flown by as well.
Now that the rains in Chennai have stopped and things are returning to normal slowly, that is weighing less on our mind. That didn't mean things came to a halt here in Cupertino. It has been an interesting week here.
The little one has been learning the violin recently. However, she is very shy and reluctant to go on stage. Her message to us has been "I want to learn because I like it. Not because I want to perform. So if you force me to go on stage, I will quit".
With a lot of encouragement from her teacher and us, she participated in the annual recital.
The best part of this for me was to watch her recover even if she made a mistake and smile through the whole thing. Now that she knows she can do it, she seems to be more confident.
Hopefully this brings out the Violinst 2.0 in her! Given that she saw the other kids from the school perform for the first time, she is definitey inspired to practice more.
Funny thing is that Jr. now wants to learn violin too and has been making a stong case on why she should learn Violin asap. We are now mulling that over..
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