Of Ravel, chopsticks and homemade muesli bars

Today my piano student arrived bearing homemade muesli bars. Sometimes it's bananas, enough oranges to feed an army, mandarins, avocadoes, homegrown lettuce, and at Christmas it was a homemade dark chocolate fruit and nut Christmas tree. That was yum let me tell you. The muesli things are pretty nice too though.

What was even better than muesli bars is that we spent a lot of the lesson on the first two lines of the second movement of the Ravel piano Sonatine. (see and hear above). She's working towards her Grade 8 exam next year. The Ravel is a challenge for both of us. I have not played a lot of Ravel (only the third movement of the Sonatine as well as one of his bird pieces at Uni). And like many I'm not a great fan of the done to death Bolero. So together we are discovering the delights of this piece. And it is just so beautiful.

The other piece we are enjoying is Sonny Chua's Theme and Twelve Deviations. It's a crazily, wonderful piece based on everybody's favourite, Chopsticks. It's long, with each variation recalling a different musical style. We both love it. And she plays it much better than I ever will. That could be because she practices a couple of hours each day. :) It's still a work in progress but here it is: