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Originally Posted by greencat  We are very sorry for your loss. I can only imagine your sorrow and feeling of abcence. I have no experience in loosing anyone where I depended for strength; especially when "the show had to go on." Though, I can relate to the time when our first teacher, Martha left. We were absolutely in love with Martha. (I should say, "In Mental Harmony" with Martha.) After she had to go live with her sister in far away, we did grow into the next teacher who took her place. However, with up hill in many issues. We now have a different teacher who we grow under and very happy. We are still good friends with the previous teacher.
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So, I'll say you must to keep your focus on what is this recital for, and what do you wish your child to remember out of this glorious occasion? And, do the best to meet that wish. Deciding the details of the recital with your daughter, together may also help her in time of feeling a great loss. I think children are often more honest in telling you how they feel, and what they want, if you ask or give them an opportunity to do so. I think open-ended question is a good way to start discussions. Hope all will go well.
With Love,
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Thank you for your kind words. We may have found a new venue and DD has determined she still wants to play a couple of the piano pieces. One piano piece will be Twinkle with Alberti bass, which I think may be a challenge for me to get through with dry eyes. But it'll be a nice tribute. We'll dedicate the recital to her and maybe say a few words.
As for whether or not to continue with piano, that's been a difficult decision. Our piano teacher's daughter has offered to take on her mother's students and has room for us, but the lessons will be held in her mother's studio and that will be hard for me - I'm not sure how it would be for my daughter. I think we could move past that after a while, but I'm sure the first few times would be difficult.
Doing the two instruments at once has proven to be challenging. One of the challenges is about having started violin so much earlier (relatively) than piano. It is definitely more difficult for her to feel as competent with piano and she becomes frustrated very easily when she practices. When we sit down to practice - of her own volition - she literally throws her hand at the piano keys, as if she just can't be bothered to try to have a good hand posture/shape. She does this very, very deliberately. I calmly and matter of factly respond with, "If you're not ready for this right now let's just come back to it later." But then she immediately cries and grabs at my clothes and tells me she wants to play. Gah. I'm pretty sure it's tied to how she feels about her playing. She's expressing a conflict, right, about wanting to play but being afraid of "trying" to play...? I feel very encouraging and try not to put pressure on her at all. I don't know how to change my approach but there's probably a lot I could be doing differently.
There are other issues at stake here, but mostly what I'm seeing is that she does seem to want to play. She does play willingly, without prompting. I'm not married to the idea of her continuing piano right now, but neither do I want to communicate to her that I don't believe in her ability to work through this steep learning curve. I feel like we're in a challenging spot, and it sure would feel so easy to just take this opportunity to end the piano lessons.
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