Scattered Thoughts . . .

L ukey hasn't had any formal lessons on piano, but he is improving by leaps and bounds each time I sit down at the piano with him.  For the past couple of weeks, we've been working on a Hoagy Carmichael piece that just about everybody knows...  "Heart and Soul".   We worked on this piece only a few minutes every other day but that was enough for Lukey to learn it.  Lukey practiced his bass part whenever he could fit in some time at the piano.  He did very, very well and he took direction exceptionally well!   This morning, we kicked the girls out of the living room/kitchen area and set up a camera so we could do a quick recording of this duet standard.  After about 12 takes, we finally had a good one which made both of us happy...  finally!   Edit:  Lukey didn't really realize what I was talking about whenever I mentioned that recording is more difficult than simply performing.  You become acutely aware of every little mistake and then you become more cautious whi

L ukey and Kenzie spent a few days with us last week during their break from school.  We had a good time with them and stayed pretty busy.  Gee had to work but I spent time doing activities with them each day.   Every now and then, Lukey and I will sit at the piano for a bit to do some improvisation and we did that again last week.  There is an audio clip, below, of our spur-of-the-moment ballad duet if you prefer to skip down to that so you can listen while you read the rest of this blog entry.   Lukey is now 10 years old and, although he has never had any true structured and regular lessons, he has an interest in the piano and sits at the piano to play at our house whenever possible.  Whenever I sit at the piano to play, he is quick to come over to the armchair right next to the piano so he can watch and listen.  In this way, he kind of reminds me of my cousin William.  William always sat right next to the piano whenever I played and he was a good page-turner for me since he read mus