Fiddle contest

With the encouragement from their violin teacher, Alyssa and Vivian attended their first ever fiddle contest today. It was a pretty big event in the Reid Park with a fairly large crowd.



Without any experience in competition and not having much time to practice, we only hoped that they can have the courage to go up to the stage, finish their songs, and have fun along the way. We were pleasantly surprised by how well they did. Both of them ended up in the same age group, the "Pee Wee", for kids up to 9-year old. Alyssa was the 2nd one on stage for the whole event, playing "Old Joe Clark", "Country Waltz", and "Long, Long Ago":



Vivian was the 5th one, playing "Boil 'em Cabbage Down", "See Saw", and "Long, Long Ago":



And while his sisters were busy with the contest, David had quite a lot of fun running around and having delicious kettle corns:



When the scores came out, we were really shocked. Vivian was in the 5th place and Alyssa was in the 3rd place!




They were very happy to share the good news with their teacher Ms. Laura:



It was definitely a fun day for our entire family, especially for the two girls. In addition to the medal/plaque and all other goodies, they also won some cash awards ($10 for Vivian and $25 for Alyssa). Now there are two rich girls in the house contemplating how to use all that money!

Vivian's 1st violin recital!

Vivian had her 1st violin recital today. Instead of the Twinkle song, she picked Go Tell Aunt Rhody for her 1st solo play on stage:


Alyssa picked a difficult piece for her solo (Gavotte from Mignon):


The 1st time for us to see the 2 girls on stage together!

Alyssa's group recital

Alyssa and her friends had their end of semester group recital today. All the kids did a great job and it was a very enjoyable show. Also their teacher Mr. Rafael Ferronato said something quite interesting during the recital:



Being a non-native speaker myself, I can understand how sometimes it is difficult to express oneself for all the language and cultural issues. If I am not mistaken, I guess he was trying to explain the importance of maintaining the mindset of a beginner if you became an expert. Or 初心, as Mr. Suzuki might have put it in Japanese.

Alyssa's violin recital

Alyssa had another violin recital today. This time she picked Long, Long Ago and Minuet 1 from Suzuki book 1 and did a great job on stage. It is really amazing how much she has learned in just a year.

Faculty chamber concert at UGA

I took Alyssa to attend her violin teacher's concert this evening and it was really enjoyable for the both of us. I am really surprised to find that Alyssa can have such a long attention span to listen to the whole program.

While listening to the beautiful music, a couple of thoughts crossed my mind. When I was growing up, classic music has some kind of "upper class" aura to it and I never thought that I'd learn to enjoy it. Seeing Alyssa doing so well in her Suzuki Violin Class somehow transformed my attitude toward this. Moreover, I started to have the temptation that I want to learn an instrument myself. Going to Short Road Home's concert at library a couple days ago really got my interest in violin peaked. It's funny that this evening's concert features a string quartet and a piano trio, and somehow all I can focus on was the sound from violin.

My temptation of learning violin is so strong that I am surprised by myself. I don't remember ever having such strong desire of learning something that's not "useful". Yet I am also scared of making the commitment to myself and jump right into it. I still worry about this may turn into a huge frustration and disappointment.

SRH at library

Short Road Home (Daniel's band) had a show at our local library this afternoon and we took the whole family there to enjoy the nice music.

To me the fiddle really stood out among all the instruments. Not sure if this is because the sound of violin is so familiar to me now (with all of Alyssa's lessons and practice) or it's just because I have been contemplating about learning violin recently. Anyway this experience certainly made a big impact. When I told Ann about my thought of learning violin, Alyssa got really excited and shouted "Yeah I can teach daddy". As I think about this more seriously I am really surprised that my daughter are so good at so many things at such a young age.

Imagine that, I may take violin lessons from a 5-year old.

Violin play-in

The Suzuki Association of Georgia (SAGa) has a play-in event today so we took a trip to Atlanta to have some fun.

Watching a large group of kids enjoy the music they play is very pleasant view. Because they are still learning, still making mistakes, the music sounds a lot more "real" and charming. We are very proud of Alyssa.

Alyssa's violin recital

Alyssa had her end of the year recital today. Because David is still struggling with the jet lag, I took the girls to the recital while Ann stayed at home. The girls dressed up really nicely. Too bad that David and Ann couldn't come, otherwise we'd have a really picture for greeting cards.



Initially I was worried that Alyssa would have trouble with jet lag too, surprisingly she did quite well.


We stopped by briefly at Dave's house for the Promislow/Hall lab party afterwards. But at that time the girls were too tired so we only stayed for about 5 minutes.

The sound of music

In order for Alyssa to keep up with her violin practice, we brought her violin back to Taiwan with us this time. She is very excited to have her grandma to practice with her. It is a real beautiful view (and sound) seeing them playing together.

Alyssa's violin recital

Alyssa had another violin recital today. We are really happy that she decided to choose songs that she knows well and then have a great performance.

Learning violins by karaoke

It never occurred to me that one can use karaoke to learn violins. But as usual, Alyssa can always come up with new ideas to surprise us.

Alyssa has been learning violin since January this year. She was doing very well and seemed to enjoy it a lot. This semester she got a scholarship that paid for all her private lessons and we are all very proud of her. As a reward for all her hard work, we decided to buy her a CD player so she can listen to the Suzuki CD in her room whenever she wants (this is what they recommended in the Suzuki Method). So we went to the store and tried to pick out a CD player for her. Alyssa quickly noticed the CD karaoke machine that's right next to the regular CD boom boxes. Intrigued by the microphone in the picture, she asked us what that is. After we explained it to her, she asked if she can get that instead. Since the price is about the same, we decided to let her get the karaoke machine.

So we went home and I taught her how to use it, gave her a Suzuki violin CD, and send her back to her room where she can have some fun. Then we heard that she was singing the violin notes "A-A-E-E-1-1-E" (twinkle-twinkle-little-star") to the background violin music. This seems like a good way for her to memorize all the notes of a song, but I've to say that this is definitely not a "normal" way for kids to learn violins.

Alyssa's solo recital

Today is Alyssa first solo recital for the violin class that she is taking. She did very well but I forgot to tell her about the concept of rehearsal. Alyssa happens to be the first one in the program, so when the recital started and I was in a hurry to push her up to the stage she got really confused. She keeps asking me "why do I have to play twice?" after she's done. She did much better in the rehearsal than in the formal performance.

Alyssa's violin recital

Today is Alyssa's first violin recital. She did a great job and made us really proud of her.