Music Archives - Kids 'R' Simple

An Extraordinary Performance by Ding Yi Music x Sand Art and Javanese Dance {Giveaway}

There is one concert that you MUST bring your kids to watch and this is Ding Yi Music Company re-enacting the legend of Sisters’ Islands with the music collaboration of Sand Art and Javanese Dance performances! The performance includes multiple art forms – With music, sand art and javanese dance. It’s suitable for the whole family!

{Media Invite + Giveaway}

Ever since we were impressed by the successful performance of the Young People’s Concert by the Singapore Chinese Orchestra which incorporates the beauty of Pulau Ubin, we had total full confidence that music performance along the line of immersing in different forms of art, dance, nature and a story will captivate us alike.

There is one performance that you MUST bring your kids to watch and this is Ding Yi Music Company re-enacting the legend of Sisters’ Islands with the music collaboration of Sand Art and Javanese Dance performances! The performance which includes multiple art forms is suitable for the whole family! Yes, kids, adults and elders too!

Think of Ding Yi Music Company, the first Chinese chamber music ensemble in Singapore, with its distinctive approach to composing and interpreting a wide repertoire that ranges from traditional Chinese music to contemporary and even cross-genre works.

Think of Sand Art performance by the celebrated artist, Mr Lawrence Koh, an international sand art virtuoso and multi-disciplinary artist specialized in both visual and performing arts.

Think of a Javanese dance performance by Mr Garrett Kam, an accomplished performer and choreographer of classical Javanese dance in the Yogyakarta court style.

Think of the same great conductor, Mr Quek Ling Kiong, who is now my favourite conductor after seeing his friendly and creative engagement with the kids in the Young People’s concert. Mr Quek is currently an adjunct teacher at the Lasalle College of the Arts and the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, Music Director for Singapore Management University Chinese Orchestra, Singapore Youth Chinese Orchestra and Conductor for Singapore most acclaimed Chinese Chamber ensemble the Ding Yi Music Company.

Think of all these put together, and I am already looking forward to how the performance will wow my kids and myself!

This performance is named as Of Music and Art: The Legend Retold, which aims to transport audience to the shores of Sisters’ Islands to relive the tale of the two fateful sisters.

I want to bring the kids to more of such performances to let them start appreciate orchestra, chinese instruments, chinese music, and at the same time enjoy the performance side of it.

There is only ONE performance, so hurry! Details as follows:

Date                : 3 Dec, Sat
Time                : 7:30pm
Duration          : Approximately 1 hour, without intermission
Venue              : Esplanade Recital Studio
Ticket price     : $25

Tickets are available at Esplanade Box Office and SISTIC www.esplanade.com and www.sistic.com.sg.

*There is also a workshop with limited seats available on 30 Nov, 3-5pm, with artists – Ding Yi musicians and Javanese dancer Garrett Kam (open to those who purchase 4 tickets and more). This workshop will bring participants through Javanese dance moves and its musical influences. Interested readers can drop an email at khaihong@anticsatplay.com for more details.

GOOD NEWS IS I HAVE

5 PAIRS OF TICKETS

TO THIS PERFORMANCE!!!

How to enter this giveaway:

Tell me who you will bring to this performance in the comments in the facebook post.
Share the facebook post by tagging 3 friends.
Sign up for my blog post mailing list (See the subscribe button on the right of the blog page)

Giveaway will end by 18 Nov at 12noon. Winners will be announced on this post on 19 Nov.

See you there!

I want to stop hurrying my kids

After reading through the handsfreemama post on “The day I stopped saying ‘hurry up“, I felt so guilty and upset of frequently saying “Hurry up…” to my kids. I am one who is impatient, and one who want to complete many things in my limited time spent with my kids since I am a working mum. The post resonates so much with what I am experiencing, I decided to check myself on how I can right things and stop uttering the “H” word so frequently.

On Saturday mornings when the kids have piano lessons, I hurry my kids to brush their teeth, eat their breakfasts, and change their clothes. When time is running out, I hurry them out the door, ignoring complaints of little feet hurting because of some blisters or dismissing their remarks of forgetting to do their piano theory with “I told you so…” or speaking at top speed of “There’s no time to tie your hair in pleats now. We’ll have to do that in the train or while waiting for the lift. If you had stopped watching tv, your hair would have been tied by now!” all under one breath. It is usually these stressful, late for class moments that the kids will start to go back in the house to find their animal kaiser cards, story books, little pet shop toys, erasers, etc, etc. It gets on my nerves and I’ll be off shouting “1,2,3 out the house” commands, all the time carrying baby YT in the baby carrier. The baby must have felt all the anger, his mummy’s fast heartbeats thumping against his head and the negative ions in the air. At such times, the papa would start to pour in some oil to the fire by criticising my time management.

On weekday evenings, we have dinner at leisurely pace. However, halfway through the meal, my 6 yr old YH will start to leave his chair, walk about, sit or stand (I can’t make out of which is which), and it is this time, Kel and I will hurl out the “H” word to command him back to the dining table . After dinner, during piano practice, YH will dilly dally about. He can play one song, walks about, plays with his dinosaurs, goes back to the piano again, and bangs the keys. At such trying times, I will “coax” him back to proper practice by using the “H” word. I said, “If you quickly (a synonym for hurry) play the pieces well and practise seriously, you can master the pieces quickly (2nd time usage here) and we can go on to do other stuff together earlier (another form of hurry up).” See! I have used the “H” word in different forms here, 3 times in one sentence! Not to mention, I said it in a hurried way too.

As the evening is so short, I try to squeeze in lots of activities into the 2 hours that we have. It became a habit to utter the “H” word conveniently, add in the “H” mood, it truly is not the kind of relax evening I would love to have with my kids.

Then, I decided, to make an evening happy and relax,

I need to slow down my pace.
I need to speak at a slower speed.
I need to forgo multi-tasking to some extent.
I need to plan and prepare earlier for outings.
I need to target arriving at all functions 10 minutes before start time.
I need to stop using the “H” word or its synonyms.

On many occasions, if I can allow more time by planning in advance and like what kel said, to better manage time, or allowing an extra 10 minutes, I need not use the “H” word 9 out of 10 times.

I decided to slow down my pace this week and check on myself for uttering the “hurry up” words. I begin to observe many things that I have never seen before, or rather have forgotten. My boy, YH has such beautiful eyes when he smiles. When I stop myself from interfering with the way he plays with his baby brother (he can be violent sometimes), I realize he is very conscious of whether the baby smiles as a result of his funny actions. He beams with his crescent eyes and toothless grin when YT smiles or claps his hands. When I allow him tantrums during piano practice and do not hurry him, he goes back to the piano on his own after cooling down and plays smoothly without hiccups. When I do not hurry him for bedtime, he produces beautiful drawings and little crafts. He is slow in writing, yet, when I sit down beside him and look at him, forcing myself to throw out hurrying thoughts, I find that he writes with such moving intensity, I could have cried.

I do not tend to hurry my girl, XX, so much. She is more disciplined and independent. When I plan things in advance and remind her from time to time, she does things responsibly and timely. I have learnt to look at her and observe the things that she does. I learn to listen to her with full attention. When I allow her to bathe the baby (with help of course), she can do almost everything that I do, although with double the time I spent. She can wash the baby’s hair, body, change the diapers and help the baby wear his clothes, etc. She loves to have me say goodnight unhurriedly and have me on her bed beside her while recalling what happened in the day. When I stay around in her room for a little while, she flashes her sweet girlish smile and speaks in babyish voice. I love her voice.

My kids tend to sleep late and have a thousand and one things to do before lights out. I used to hurry them to dreamland so that they have enough sleep and so do I. Now, when I do not hurry bedtime so much, they settle down better and I got to enjoy the perfect bedtime ritual of kissing them goodnight before I leave the room in peace.

I love my kids. I want to enjoy time being with them while they still want me by their side. The dishes can wait, the dirty floor can wait, even the me-time can wait. My kids are growing up everyday and soon, I will have lots of time by myself and probably too much time on hand to spend. When that time comes, I wouldn’t want my kids to hurl back the “H” word to me. I would equally want them to enjoy time with me at a leisurely pace.

(Thanks to handsfreemama Rachel whose beautiful write-up causes me to stop and re-look at my hurried pace. You can check out her blog here, she writes beautifully and so true to what we parents experience.)

Learning Piano: From Dread to Love

XX has been learning piano in the Yamaha Junior Music Course (YJC) for almost 3 years . That, to me, is already an achievement to her and me. Firstly, learning something new is not easy, and to be able to sustain learning is even more difficult. Piano course is XX’s first enrichment class and in fact her only one till now. Kel and I have been careful not to stress our kids in taking too many courses. Ok, I know one is not alot at all and she may have time to learn another new skill. Or rather, WE as parents can “squeeze” some more time to bring her to a second enrichment class, which means multiply by 2 if you have 2 kids like me.

All parents will know that for their children to take courses, it involves tremendous determination, time, effort, coordination and of course trade-offs. It doesn’t help that YH has started this year in the same Yamaha JMC course too (The first 2 years being JMC – Junior Music Course, and the next 2 years being JXC – Junior Extension Course). Luckily I was able to find an exactly same time slot for the both of them at the same Yamaha branch. In that case, we do not need to spend unnecessary hours waiting for the next class to start.

I have all praises for Yamaha JMC/JXC course. Having some background in music, I appreciate the Yamaha teaching approach and emphasis on by-ear hearing for children at the age of 4 onwards. Age of 4 is the golden start year of a child’s hearing. Parents have to sit in with their children for the initial 2 years in JMC. So now, XX is already in her 3^rd year (JXC) and I am proud that she is independent enough to attend the weekly one hour lesson on her own! That includes taking down notes and following her teacher, Ms Tan’s instructions! I could not have believed it half a year back! One thing I have learnt is that kids will be forever dependent on you until the day you let go and let them be on their own. How true is that for XX!

These 3 years are not without ups and downs in learning piano. The ups and downs apply as much to XX as to me. From the initial enthusiasm to asking for permission to skip the class to tearful practices at home and to current going-to-piano-on-her-own, it indeed is a roller coaster ride for both of us. I would not say she has great affection for the piano. But she definitely enjoys it.

How do I deal with her tantrums at the point of low interest in piano?

The ingredients are lots of PATIENCE and PATIENCE and PATIENCE!

1) Patience! Patience! Patience!

There are many times when I feel like pulling my hair or stomp off the seat (which I guiltily admit I did!) when I am coaching her practice. There are times when I feel like stopping her lessons. But, this is the only class she goes, and she is good at it, and I can see signs of enjoyment during class and smirk of satisfaction on her face when she masters a piece. I have to keep telling myself to think positively that both of us must persevere and must not give up learning halfway. I took a bet on this one despite many negative withdrawal thoughts. I won, at least until today.

2) Practise in a fun way!

Children love games! When my girl is discouraged with playing a difficult piece, I put her favourite clip on the back of her hand. The challenge is to play the piece without dropping the clip. She takes up the challenge happily and practices more times and it helps her familiarize the song without knowing. Bravo! She masters the song! (By the way, XX is good at memorizing and mastering songs in less than 5 tries!)

As for YH, he practises the piano with his pooh bear behind him as you can see here 🙂

3) Have a mini concert

While XX is practicing her pieces to almost passable standard, I will invite her brother YH to have a crazy dance. We can fall to the floor at the cue of the last note. We can dance in a slow but funny way with moderato or largo tempo. We do a fast one with allegro songs. We tried waltz and tango as well. Everyone enjoys the concert.

4) Playing for others

Sometimes, knowing too much can be a disadvantage too. XX loves to play for her 爷爷 (grandpa) who doesn’t know how to play the piano. She finds herself an expert compared to him and loves the applause and encouraging words from him after a song. He doesn’t criticize much. For me, I have the urge to correct mistakes and point out improvements. XX, at her lousy mood times, will throw tantrums when I correct her. When tantrums flood in, the entire session is spoilt. I try my best to avoid this.

5) Encouragement and lots of it!

XX’s Yamaha teacher, Ms Tan is extremely good at handling kids. I learnt from her some silly ways to make practice sessions fun. When XX plays a song well, instead of clapping my hands, I ask her to tap her nose together with me. We tap our cheeks and shoulders and anywhere we find silly and funny. Such amusing and fun actions liven up the entire practice session. And it works great with the young one YH.

At times, when my girl throws tantrums, I bit my lip and use my most tender and loving voice to push her on. When it doesn’t work, I stop the practice session totally and announce to continue the next day. I would rather stop the session abruptly than to let her continue in a sulking manner. Playing the piano is supposed to be fun and enjoyable. I would not want her to link piano with stress and lousy feelings.

I strongly believe that learning the piano will teach my kids

– PATIENCE (while figuring out notes and expressions),

– ENDURANCE (in mastering a piece of song),

– PERSEVERANCE (in the long road to Grade 8 and above)

– INDEPENDENCE (go to class alone, take down notes, and practice on her own at home)

– ENJOYMENT (a way of expressing herself, her feelings, her thoughts through music, that’ll be in the future)

– PRIDE (to learn a skill and able to display confidence to an audience)

Well, the route of learning is tough. But, I am happy that I am able to accompany XX and YH in this long journey to reap the intangibles and values that we pick up along the way.

Do you have interesting ways to encourage your kids? Share with me!