El’s piano teacher wants him to play Gallop Pony for the annual concert. She had sent me a video of him playing that song before. We were at my parents’ place and I got him to practise the song. Since I could remember it from memory (almost), I played for him and he played too. He could remember it and played from memory, with a little hiccup.
I tried to teach him to link the notes and use his wrist movement to make the notes sound better and not staccato-like.
Then, because he wanted to play Pearl in the C, he became very agitated. I did not remember this song, so I could not play it for him. I got my husband, who was at home, to take a photo of the song and send it to me.
He did, and we played the song, which was just a series of C notes an octave apart.
Then, he swiped through the whatsapp photos, and noticed a picture of Gar. Immediately, he put the phone down, and started playing a few notes.
B C B C |A… | B C B C |D…|
I started singing to the tune, Gar(x) Gar(x) Come, Gar(x) Come and Play, using Gar’s full name. He was amused by it, and I suggested writing it down.
We went to my old room, where there was a grey office table I used to work at. I could not find any manuscript paper, so I took a piece of blank paper and drew the stave (or staff in American English for 5 music lines) using a plastic clipper for bags and a pencil. He climbed up a red stool and sat down. He wrote ‘Gar Come To Play’ at the top of the stave.
The notes are right between two clefs, so I wanted him to write them an octave higher. He went ahead to draw the beautiful middle C on top of the stave. I had to change the treble clef to bass clef.
“Hey, your tune starts with B, not C,” I reminded him.
He got down from the red stool, and ran out to play the notes again. He ran back and said that it was okay to start with C.
He was unhappy with how the B looked like, saying it was too flat. I erased it and he drew over it again. Eventually, he had written C B C B A C B C B D, all in minim beats.
It was getting late, so we took the paper and left. I promised him I would buy manuscript paper for him. Music prodigy he is not, but at least he is showing more interest in piano now!
