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[smallestopener]

Ingress is ready for her first piano lesson. She has on tap shoes, for no real reason other than it seemed like the thing to wear.

She click clacks across the music room floor, as soon as she sees Sallie walk in through the painting.

"Hi! Are we going to play the piano today?"

Comments

[realmrsreynolds]

Music in a folder in one hand, Sallie enters the House of Arch through the painting, still not entirely used to the whole painting-door concept.

Click Clack Click Clack

A big grin for the blue-haired piano student.

"We're going to try, at any rate. Ready?"

[smallestopener]

Ingress nods her head. "Do we both a sit down on the bench? It's a big bench, so there's plenty of room."

[realmrsreynolds]

Walking into the music room, Sallie still has a moment of pure happy that she gets to play on such a pretty piano.

"We'll both sit down on the bench, but you'll be sittin' at the center of all the keys, because the song we're going to learn today, you need the keys in the center."

[smallestopener]

"Okay," she says, and sits down in the middle. She places her hands over the keys. "What now?"

[realmrsreynolds]

"First, we're going to learn which keys are which notes."

There is demonstration of whole notes: middle C to first octave C and back down again.

"Eight lil' letters is all we're going to work on for a bit. Want to try?"

[smallestopener]

"I do. I know all my letters." She follows the path up and down the keys that Sallie took. "I know big words, too. Do you spell words with the letters? Cos that would be fun. You could spell the songs!"

[realmrsreynolds]

"You do spell the songs, in a way. But you're not spelling the names o' the songs, you're spelling the tune."

The first sheet of paper Sallie reaches into her folder for is not music staff paper - it's lines of letters, of a tune Sallie grew up humming and knowing by heart, even if no words existed for it.

"See? You're spelling out the songs, so you can know how to play it."

Sallie plays the first line of the tune letter by letter.

[smallestopener]

She vigorously attacks the keys. It is played in order, but with very little rhythm.

This does not matter to Ingress.

"I did it! I did it!"

[realmrsreynolds]

A wide smile. Six-year-olds are nothing if not energetic, and energetic always gets smiles from little old ladies.

"You're doin' great for your first time, Ingress. You sure you ain't done this before?"

[smallestopener]

"No, but Tom and Door let me play here when they first found the room. So I could practice. We never have done music stuff. Not even Mummy and Daddy did."

She attacks the tune again.

[realmrsreynolds]

Still smiling, it's time to change a bit of Ingress's tactic.

"Try and see if you can play the notes with just one finger."

It's better than explaining to Tom that the piano needs restringing my first day.

[smallestopener]

She does so. It makes the banging reverberation die down quite a bit.

"Ooh, it was prettier when it was soft."

[realmrsreynolds]

[ooc: So I lose beyond all measure. Or my GMail does. Or something. >___O;;]

"See? Music can be pretty either loud or soft. Soft is what we're gonna stay to for a bit, then we get to play with the loud, 's that alright?"

[smallestopener]

"Okay!"

She continues on with listening to Sallie and trying everything she's shown. It's lots of fun, even if it is a little loud still.

Aiee, I am even worse. I forgot to tag cos I thought I had and obviously haven't. Shall we fade/wrap and post?

[realmrsreynolds]

Sallie never had experience with six-year-old girls, except for that part where she was one...a long long time ago.

There is a bit more playing, a lot more smiling, and assignment of C-major and B flat-major chords for homework.

Then there is lollipops. Oh yes.