Written by Guest Contributor on Sep 17, 2013 |
Simply Music Community
Jaclyn Holmes is 11 years old and has been learning Simply Music piano for about four years/195 lessons. She’s currently in the middle of Level 10 and is just beginning the Jazz and Accompaniment 2 programs. To make sure she has plenty of opportunities to hone all of the musical skills she’s acquired at lessons, Jaclyn plays keyboard in not one, but two all-girl Rock bands!
Jaclyn keeps me on my toes. She is a very sharp young lady who picks things up very quickly, so I need to give her extra projects. She loves a good challenge.
For example, she came in two weeks ago and said that the woman that was supposed to be the accompanist for her older sister’s flute solo for the state “Solo and Ensemble Festival” cancelled, so she had to be the accompanist. She told me that she had brought the music and asked if I could go over it with her. It was quite a complex piece (not a chord-based accompaniment), “Beethoven’s Serenade.” When I asked her when she needed to play this, I was surprised when she answered, “a week from Saturday.” This was a Thursday lesson.
After looking over the music over in ‘Simply Music fashion,’ we went to work on the ‘cabbage’, as Neil likes to put it. The next Thursday, we went over the remainder of the music and worked on the ‘how to play,’ as opposed to the ‘what to play.’ I am more than impressed that Jaclyn accepted the challenge to take on such a hefty project at such short notice. The end result was a ‘superior’ (1) rating at the festival. What will her next challenge be? I can only imagine.
