The Virtual Piano Recital
The Laugh
My daughters are taking piano lessons this year for the first time. We go every other week as our piano teacher lives an hour away (she is our good friend, the drive is very worth it). Due to Covid restrictions, our lessons shifted to virtual piano lessons, and the Christmas concert was done virtually as well. Short videos of each student playing their song were collected, put together, and then released at a specific time so everyone could still attend the recital together. Our teacher even delivered cookies to everyone that day so we could still have recital treats! We were provided with instructions on how to film each student playing their song. At a lesson that preceded the recording, the girls were taught how to introduce themselves and bow when they were done playing.
It was Christmas time, a lot was going on, and I was focused on getting the recital recording off the to-do list. Given my focus on the outcome of checking off my to-do list, I failed to account for some other important details. Details that did not become apparent to me until we watched the recital, and I was mortified at what I saw. Everyone’s house looked really tidy (at least what we could see), and most of the kids were dressed up. My kid’s comments outside of “wow, they are really good” were mostly about how clean everyone else’s house was. Here are the adjustments we will make if we are ever part of another virtual piano recital:
Dust the piano
Consider the background. Make sure it is not the disastrous kid’s art area, and if shooting from the other angle, hide the big ass tall blue recycling bin in the kitchen from view.
Get the piano tuned (this perhaps a tie for #1), our piano is a 100-year-old hand-me-down, and I have not yet got it tuned. It is not just out of tune; it probably hasn’t been tuned for 20 years or more.
Don’t let your child wear shorts (pajama shorts incidentally) and a t-shirt (in my defense, she had just finished a virtual gymnastics session).
If your child has hiccups, wait until they pass to film the video.
Tidy the part of the house that will be visible on the video, so it appears that the house is not a disaster.
We are better (note better, not good) at showing up somewhere and looking like we’ve got our shi_t together. However, when showing up includes a birds-eye view of our house, we can’t hide, and our chaos is everywhere.
The Lesson
The little things do make a big difference, especially in times of challenge and duress. Even though we can significantly improve our presentation, the girls still got to be part of their first piano recital and share their performance with us, their grandparents, and great grandparent. Our teacher could have just foregone any attempts to create a recital, but she pivoted and created a meaningful experience for her students. Just because something does not look and feel like it usually does, does not mean that it cannot still be meaningful and memorable.
Sometimes we are so rushed to check off the things on our to-do list we forget about the elements involved in achieving the outcome or the details tied to it. Sometimes we need to step away from the to-do list and ask ourselves what is important here, is there something I am not seeing, is there something else we need to do, what is this really about?
As Lily Tomlin once said, “For fast-acting relief, try slowing down.” If I had slowed down and looked around, we could have avoided the six revisions noted above.
The Iteration (i.e., how to make it better next time)
See # 1-6 above.
Slow down, be kind to yourself, and be grateful for the experiences we can still have and create, even if they look different from what we are used to.