Piano Girl

Yes, yes, yes, I have to share this here.  Samantha's timing is impeccable, following along with my own re-introduction to my piano.  Recently, my mother purchased a piano book for the princess, hoping to teach her some of the fundamental basics of playing the instrument, hoping to teach her the relationship between what is read in a book and the tune that can be made on the keys.  While it's not really reading actual music, it has taught Samantha just that.  The way it works is that each note in the book is merely a color-coded letter, corresponding to the letter of the key in the octave, the color different for each different octave, and the colors and letters mirrored in easy-to-remove stickers placed on each piano key.  The pieces are simple, familiar tunes.  Although I highly doubt she's ever heard Good Night Ladies...

My mother has practiced with Samantha each time she comes over to visit, certain that Sammi would get it eventually, and the last time she came over she called me at work to tell me that she'd done it.  I didn't believe it, really, until just the other day, while Steve and I were in an adjoining room talking to some visitors, and heard the sound of My Country Tis of Thee coming from the living room.  Thinking it was the teenaged son of the couple with whom we were speaking, we looked over and were astounded that it was Samantha, on her own.  Here she is, somewhat fidgety, playing Twinkle Twinkle on Sunday.  I missed the very beginning, and she pooped out before she finished (to her credit, she had already played it half a dozen times before I had the brilliant notion to record it), but I love how she goes back and forth between looking at the book and the keys, humming (tone-deaf) along.  :-)  Am I expecting her to suddenly take off and rip into a Bach Invention, a Tchaikovsky Concerto?  Not in the least, but I'm pretty pleased with baby steps.