Playing in Church with My Dad
Today, after an exhausting weekend of being my mom's stand partner on viola for two rehearsals and two concerts, I woke up early and went with my dad to church. We try to do this about once a year. Basically just drop in somewhere (if he's substituting as organist, that's where we go, but otherwise it's to one of a group of churches where we're both well known) and play prelude for 30 minutes, an offertory, and a postlude.
One of the perks of being the only one of my father's daughters who plays music at a high level is having this level of intimacy with our dad. It's pretty great. He does like to "test" me though, by throwing things at me on purpose to see what happens. This morning, I passed four Dad-Tests.
1. We were playing through some stuff, me on violin (HIS violin, while he played piano) from memory, and he said, "What the heck is that chord there anyway?" And I told him, and he tried it, and I was right! He said, "Not many violinists know theory like that."
2. We were rehearsing the Fiocco Allegro, and he improvised a tango rhythm in the development section, in the piano part. I said, "Is that a tango rhythm? I'm pretty sure Fiocco didn't write it that way!" And he said, "Yep, I thought you'd get a kick out of that!"
3. Singing hymns, I was able to jump between alto (in its written octave) and tenor (transposing up an octave) in my sight-singing. I don't sound great, but it's a neat effect regardless of my voice. He said, "Tenor an octave up! Pretty neat!"
4. Last, but not least, I gave him carte blanche to choose the music. So, in addition to some of our standards (Handel D Major Sonata, Fiocco Allegro, Meditation from Thais) he gave me a new piece, the Corelli Sonata No. 1, Op. 5 in D Major. I sight-read it once through with him, stomped my foot a couple of times at the tricky spots, wrote in a couple of fingerings, then called it good. It went fine in performance.
Later at the grocery store, while we were waiting in line, he turned to me and said, "If I didn't already know you very well, I would have been totally impressed that you walked in and read that Corelli. You have to be a total extrovert to play that piece."
=)
One of the perks of being the only one of my father's daughters who plays music at a high level is having this level of intimacy with our dad. It's pretty great. He does like to "test" me though, by throwing things at me on purpose to see what happens. This morning, I passed four Dad-Tests.
1. We were playing through some stuff, me on violin (HIS violin, while he played piano) from memory, and he said, "What the heck is that chord there anyway?" And I told him, and he tried it, and I was right! He said, "Not many violinists know theory like that."
2. We were rehearsing the Fiocco Allegro, and he improvised a tango rhythm in the development section, in the piano part. I said, "Is that a tango rhythm? I'm pretty sure Fiocco didn't write it that way!" And he said, "Yep, I thought you'd get a kick out of that!"
3. Singing hymns, I was able to jump between alto (in its written octave) and tenor (transposing up an octave) in my sight-singing. I don't sound great, but it's a neat effect regardless of my voice. He said, "Tenor an octave up! Pretty neat!"
4. Last, but not least, I gave him carte blanche to choose the music. So, in addition to some of our standards (Handel D Major Sonata, Fiocco Allegro, Meditation from Thais) he gave me a new piece, the Corelli Sonata No. 1, Op. 5 in D Major. I sight-read it once through with him, stomped my foot a couple of times at the tricky spots, wrote in a couple of fingerings, then called it good. It went fine in performance.
Later at the grocery store, while we were waiting in line, he turned to me and said, "If I didn't already know you very well, I would have been totally impressed that you walked in and read that Corelli. You have to be a total extrovert to play that piece."
=)