Songbird Piano Lessons

  Hello! I'm back!    I had a sad experience on Thursday . When I came into Wal-Mart, the seasonal display right at the front door was no longer carrying bubbles, pool floaties, and s'mores kits.    It now has back-to-school supplies.    *groans* It's not even August yet!     People complain about how the Christmas stuff starts coming out even before the  Halloween  décor is down. I don't mind that. I love seeing the Christmas stuff come out, love watching the light of hopeful, child-like anticipation chase away the darkness of night. Even if it's all secularized and very little of it actually has to do with  Baby Jesus or salvation.    But I do mind the back-to-school supplies coming out in July.     And now, I'm going to make matters worse in the world by reminding people that piano lessons are coming up, too, in a little over a month. (Actually, is that so bad? Because I've already got a cool September theme in  my head and.... never mind. Just let me run

 Recently I was accompanying an advanced level violinist, one I had heard play multiple times and knew to be highly skilled. She was working on a Mozart sonata, and as we worked, I discovered that she did not know what sonata form was. She didn't know when she was playing in the exposition, the development, or the recapitulation.     It didn't affect her playing.     Which got me thinking: Why does it matter? Why should students know whether they're playing a sonata form, a rondo, or a theme and variations? Isn't it enough that they just make music, play with expression, and give glory to God and pleasure to their audience (and themselves)?     I had to backtrack and think of my younger self.     Once upon a time, I played sonatas without actually knowing what a sonata was. I knew they generally had three movements. But for the most part, sonatas and rondos were simply boring names that Classical composers gave their pieces, names that gave me the liberty to invent my o