Dicie's 1st Piano Recital

Last week Dicie had her very first piano recital. She's been taking lessons all school year and has been making great progress. She's a natural pianist! She has completed the first level in the series of piano books, and I'm so proud of her!

For the recital she played "Come Buy My Balloons," "The Circle of Life" (from the Lion King), and "Jesus Once of Humble Birth" from the Hymns Made Easy book. This last song was the special song. When Dicie first began practicing this hymn at home a while back she was very frustrated when I told her she was playing it wrong! She wasn't playing the left hand as it was written in the book. She told me she was playing the chords as they were written like her teacher told her too. We had quite the little argument about it and after her next lesson she came home with a note from her sweet teacher explaining that Dicie was learning the chords and should play those instead of the notes written in the bass cleft. At first I thought it was too hard for a kid to do, but Dicie understood easily and had no trouble with it. So she played this song for her recital, following the written notes in the treble cleft and playing the guitar chords with her left hand! I was very impressed and I think it's a great way for her to not only learn the chords, but learn to improvise and think outside the box.

Dicie with her wonderful teacher, Cindy.

I am very pleased with the progress Dicie has made. She really is a natural and I'm hoping she'll learn to love to play and to love music. She has already started "teaching" Dallin and I plan to encourage more of this during the summer. It's kind of a two-for-one deal! Next up, I'll try to figure out how to post a short video of her recital.