Today I played "Amazing Grace" with a high school senior accompanying me on piano, for his classmates. We had never worked on it together until this morning. We went over it twice, making a few changes here and there.
Here’s what led up to it. My daughter is the High School teacher for( AP English ) for this student. Let's just call him Frankie. She, ( our daughter) assigned them some sort of senior final project that allows them to share with the class a certain interest or passion they may have. Frankie's is Jazz music and music in general. He's a good pianist and even has written some of his own stuff. He wanted to have someone play trumpet along with one of his songs, and he chose Amazing Grace. Teacher then suggests her father can play the trumpet with him, maybe? And so, I did.
When we first started, I thought....hmmm, he seems a little stiff and halting. Oh, well, I thought, it’s his show...
After going over it once, I asked if he would mind some suggestions. He said, no, not at all. I said, how about we do this, that, and that? And he perked right up and said, yeah, that sounds good. Next, and final time we ran through it he was rejuvenated and finally let loose and really was now doing what he could do. We really got on the same channel and felt what we should be doing. It went great when it came time to do it a few minutes later. He then played a few more pieces on his own. What a great experience to hear him play! I enjoyed it, except for the awful traffic I had to face going to the school at rush hour this morning!
