Piano Contests

For whatever Autism troubles Colin struggles, music is not one of them. The kid takes after his father and then some. He has a beautiful voice. I suspect he has perfect pitch. He is zooming through the piano series. Not that I am biased at all . . .

Barb is Colin's piano teacher and I think I've said before that they are a perfect pair. Colin plays whatever he gives her, and she responds enthusiastically to whatever he plays. Strict? Not hardly. Bent on perfectionism? Ha! But I tell you what, my son will play piano.

Every year Barb's students participate in a music festival. The top winners can go on to compete at high levels, but Barb does not encourage this. She gives out contest pieces in the fall and the contest is now in the late winter. The first year Colin took the whole thing very seriously. He sat down and in his sweet little second grader voice he announced, "It has a lot of louds and softs." The judge said, "It certainly does" and Colin played it to perfection. Five out of five stars! Brilliant!!

Last year Colin had done that whole scene. He learned his piece right away and then got bored. He was in a phase where he liked to have the bench really close to the piano. The judge didn't like that. Four out of five stars. Boo.

This year Colin learned his piece right away and so I put it away and forgot all about it . . . until last week. It was a rocky week of brushing it off. Colin doesn't feel he needs to play dynamics this year. "Other kids don't." Well, no . . .BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN YOU DON'T. LOUDS AND SOFTS! LOUDS AND SOFTS! You were so cute once upon a time.

Daniel fell asleep in the car, so I volunteered to wait out with him. Frankly, I didn't think I would be able to watch.

Brent came floating back to the car 15 minutes later, "He was great! Good dynamics! Five stars!"

Whew.