Long thirsty Thursdays

They are doing intensive rehearsals for this drama production. Lunch-time and after-school rehearsals.

I think son is regretting it a little that these are going on all the time. But he is not going to quit because he is not going to let the other people down. Good on him!

This means having to miss his Thursday lunch-time Chess Club. He's OK with that as he's not required for rehearsal next week and could catch up on Chess then. Today it means having to miss his first break because of a piano lesson. Then he goes to Late Class after school until the rehearsal between 4.30 and 5.30pm.

Gave him some grapes for a snack but he might not have time to eat them. At least it is there and might come in useful to quench his thirst.

Orchestra rehearsals have also moved back to Mondays. That means he does Monday lunch band practice, Monday after-school orchestra rehearsal before finishing at 4.30pm. He gets a break on Tuesday and is home early then.

He also has four pieces to perform on the clarinet in a couple of weeks at the Autumn Wind and Brass Concert at school. He plays with an oboeist, two flutists, another clarinettest (all from the top end of the school) and plays the melody line with his best friend who has just started on the clarinet. So a lot of practice for him.

Practice?

I'm still having trouble trying to get him to practise more than five minutes every other day or so. What is exasperating is that despite long breaks in between he is still able to produce a very good tone in the first instance and he does not forget his fingering. So I cannot even say, "If you don't put in the practice you would lose your muscle tone."

I think he does exercises with his mouth and lip muscles even when he is not physically playing the clarinet and that is very good. I can't complain really. Except that a mother always feels, "Ah! If only he would do a little bit more, he could be SO good."

Yesterday it was really lovely to hear him play and experiment on the clarinet. And he was demonstrating to his dad the diminished chords on the piano. Hopefully music theory will be a dawdle (spelling?) to him when the time comes.

He is struggling to write the '£' sign in his Maths and musical notes, clefs, etc. We're 'doing' his science project on 'sound' and we decided that we would decorate some old empty plastic containers with musical signs. We've taken to sticking post-it tags on the inside of the container so he could trace the patterns on the outside. It's coming along.

This morning he was trying to show me how he has to dance while singing "We're in the money!" etc. Let's hope he loosens up a bit.