Jamming with Zoë Keating

Thursday: Our morning practice was short and pretty successful. I think we worked on Allegretto some more. (I need to take better notes! Any notes!)

In the evening, I tried something different. I picked M up quite early to give us plenty of time to practice. But rather than asking her to practice when we got home, I figured I’d start practicing on my own and let her do whatever she wanted. I thought perhaps she’d decide to join me.

Didn’t happen. She drew happily by herself in the kitchen for 45 minutes while I did two things: (1) figured out some of the motifs in Zoë Keating’s Escape Artist so M with a mind to improvising to it, and (2) practiced the Canon and Oh How Lovely Is the Evening.

I had a harder time with the Canon than I expected, which gave me new respect and sympathy for M’s struggles with it.

M and I finally practiced together after dinner. Mostly we worked on a few sections of the Canon, which was much improved. M also played Oh How Lovely Is the Evening with no difficulty. We talked about coming up with a plan to work on her review songs, but didn’t actually do any. M was very cooperative.

Then we did some jamming to Escape Artist. M didn’t actually seem to be trying that hard to match her playing with the song — she didn’t really want to be bothered with what I figured out about the song’s notes. But M’s rhythm was good, and she seemed to be having fun, so that’s something.

Back story: Yesterday night I saw Keating perform and got copies of her CDs, one of which she inscribed to M. M and I listened to a few songs from the new CD on the way back from school, but M was more interested in hearing a story (Beethoven Lives Upstairs).