Yesterday afternoon I had finished teaching piano and needed to make a quick run to the store, so I cracked the whip and started the kids on their homework and practicing and then left. When I got back my brain played "What's wrong with this picture?" for a few seconds. You know what I mean--you see something and in 20 seconds your brain goes through a thought process like this:
Et is practicing. That's good. And he looks happy. Cool. And Ev's in the same room. Weird. Why? Et never likes anyone in the room when he practices. What's going on? Why is Et happy? He hates practicing. He hates someone in the room. Wait a minute--Ev looks mad. Like Candace on Phineas and Ferb. This is starting to make sense.
At this point I made a hasty exit because everyone still has all their body parts and no one is bleeding so I don't really want to know what's going on, right? Ev--the informer--follows me. Of course. She "informs" me that Et "held a fermata for 5 MINUTES! 5 MINUTES! You can't hold a fermata for 5 minutes!" At this point I can hear Et in the background giggling. He calls out, "You can hold a fermata for as long as you want! That's what a fermata is!" Obviously proud of himself. Later I found out that he played one song three times and held the fermata 5 minutes each time. Ingenious when you consider that he has to practice 20 minutes.
I'm starting to wonder if my kids really are normal because even I thought that this argument was a little strange. For those of you who don't know what a fermata is, it is a musical symbol denoting the lengthening of a note or rest. Some people call it a bird's eye. Nobody in their right mind holds them for 5 minutes. I hate to curb his creativity and musical expression but it appears I am going to have to make a family rule about fermatas. When I get done chuckling about this.
5 comments:
Oh Linnea, this has me rolling laughing! How funny is that! You gotta hand it to the kid for being ingenious and knowing the definition of a fermata. This might be the time to teach him about John Cage's infamous "4:33"- the piece he composed that was exactly 4 minutes and 33 seconds of silence.
That's hilarious. My Mom banned my brother Josh and I from saying barbecue sauce because we used it to torture our youngest brother. We weren't allowed to call him a baby (even if he was being one) so we would hum the Chillis baby back ribs song and say BBQ sauce in a really deep voice. Kids will do anything to harass each other.
LOL! That is too funny! Where do your kids come up with this stuff? I agree with Stacy about introducing him to "4:33".
I'm sorry but your son is a genius (and yes I'm having one of those nights where I actually had to look up 'genius' because I couldn't remember how to spell it). Had I thought to hold a fermata for more than a couple of seconds I think I would have enjoyed 'practice time' a lot more.
I'm laughing also at One Fish's comment...until my kids figure out something similar, then I won't be laughing.
Very funny! Et sounds like he is very creative and very much like a brother. Don't you know that a brothers job is to torment his sister?
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