The happy-learner

Today I saw my happy-learner 6 year old student.  She is in kindergarten.  She can play up through Long, Long Ago in book 1. I asked her what she'd like to start with and she said "Schradieck". On Friday I'd sent her a recording of the first 3 lines of the first page, and she had learned them. She was getting a little confused with how many repetitions of C# D on the second line, so I explained how to think in groups of four, and she listened and said, "so six times, then." I told her that she thinks in patterns, which is something that I really relate to.

Her recital piece is going to be O Come Little Children. But today she played Long Long Ago and May Song so well that I said (without leading) "The plan is for you to play O Come Little Children on the recital. How do you feel about that?" She thought a bit and said "That sounds just right!"

I asked to make a video. I explained that I like to send videos to my mom to show my grandmother. I explained that my grandma is 100. She said "Is she alive?" "Will she be 101, then?" I also said that older people sometimes get forgetful. She said "can she hear?" She was very happy to send a video to my grandma.

They're going to Paris on spring break. I said that sounded like so much fun and I would like to go to Paris. She said "I want you to come with us! You could come with us!"

I asked if the violin was going with them. She said "I want to take the violin!" Her mom said no, so I tried to make it a little lighter. "If you took the violin, you could play it under the Eiffel Tower. Maybe people would give you money for playing."

We then started to play through O Come Little Children, and she got the giggles so hard that I had to hold her violin so she could wipe her eyes.


I made the the video after that, and in the video she is still smiling the whole way through O Come Little Children because she's thinking about playing the violin under the Eiffel Tower, and that people would be giving her money.