1st Talent Contest for Jewelia!

Jewelia joined her brothers to compete in her first talent contest this last week.  She played "The Happy Farmer" on her violin.

She was the youngest contestant out of about 23 kids going up to about 17 years old, but she did great!  

She earned a green ribbon and had a lot of fun!

Here is the video from her performance:

                                             

Here Come the Primary Songs!

Jewelia has gotten a new violin book that has all primary church songs in it.  It is a pretty easy book for her to play, but it is fun and has some pretty piano accompaniment arrangements.  She is having a good time learning to play all her favorite primary songs.  

First she wanted to play "Keep the Commandments":

       

Then, she loved to play "Do As I'm Doing" which turned out really pretty:

       

Just wait, as you will be hearing a lot more primary songs in the future!

Jewelia Gets Her Accompanist Back!

Jewelia has gone solo for a while as her accompanist brother had arm surgery, but now his arm is healing, so they are back at it again!  

Over a year ago, Jewelia wanted to play a church song on her violin, and her first violin teacher, Mr. Hooper, made up a little version of a church song that she could play on her violin with piano accompaniment.  We don't know why it took so long to finally get around to it, but here is "I Know My Father Lives":

            

Mr. Hooper is now Elder Hooper, serving a church mission. 

 I'm sure he would be proud.

Hunter's Chorus

Jewelia thought she was pretty cute today with her hair down but with braids going across the top of her head (and with flowers too!).  She's been doing pretty well in violin.  She has memorized a new song from her Suzuki 2 Book called "Hunter's Chorus":

            

Back to New Songs from Suzuki

Well, Christmas is over, so back to the regular songs for Jewelia!  

This week she has been working in her Suzuki Book Level 2.  She is working on keeping her wrist away from her violin.  It is kind of tough when you have a short little violin, but Jewelia is working hard to break the habit.  

Jewelia has been growing a lot.  Wow, her hair has been growing so long!  Maybe she will need to go up to the next size violin soon.  She started with a 1/10 size violin when she was 4, and then went up to a 1/8 violin when she turned 6.  But the next size up is a 1/4 violin and that is quite a jump.  We shall see when she turns seven.

Here she is playing her latest song from Suzuki called "Musette":

          

Good job Jewelia!

Jewelia Plays in Church on Christmas Day!

This year Jewelia was asked to play a violin solo in church on Christmas day!  This was going to be very exciting for Jewelia, so we decided to throw 2 songs into one medley to allow her to play a little longer.  

She was going to play The First Noel and then go right into Hark! The Harold Angels Sing.  

She did so well!  She didn't even make one mistake!  

We couldn't record in church, but here are two videos of her playing the songs separate at home.  

Here is "The First Noel":

           

And here is the 2nd song, "Hark! The Harold Angels Sing":

           

Well, you got a very fast version of that song!  

We can't wait for next Christmas, and hope that she might have a chance to play again in church.  

Jewelia Performs at the Mall

Jewelia wanted to have a Christmas violin recital, but her teacher said she didn't have very many students who were good enough to play in a recital yet.  Instead, her teacher decided to join with her piano/guitar teacher friend to have her students play as part of their recital.  Her teacher's friend wanted to have the recital at a mall.

This sounded like it might be fun, but it was in the middle of the Christmas season and the mall was very very busy and noisy.  There was even a train that circled around the inside of the mall tooting it's horn and ringing it's bell about every 5 minutes.  So, when it was Jewelia's turn to play it was very hard to hear her.

But she still did great!  She had Caleb come to accompany her on piano.  Here she is performing "Silent Night":

          

Her second song she was to perform "Believe" from the Polar Express.  She did really well, but toward the end of the song Caleb had to turn some pages and he couldn't quite reach because the piano was an electric keyboard that was a bit too tall, so the book fell off the piano hitting the keys and he had to fix it all.  Jewelia was good to wait and continue on when he fixed it.  It was kind of funny though that she didn't even notice what had happened.  She just thought he really messed up his accompaniment!  

Here is there 2nd performance with the piano book disaster:

You could still tell they knew the song and it would have been perfect minus the book falling part.

Maybe next time they decide to perform at a mall it won't be such a busy time and not so loud.  It was fun though, and we all had a good time!  

2nd Grade Christmas Program

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Jewelia had a 2nd grade Christmas program.  See her on the front row?  The shortest one?  Yep, that's our Jewelia! 

She was excited for this program because she was asked to sing a solo, or rather a duet with another little boy for one of the songs.  We knew Jewelia was a good little singer!

She did a great job!  The boy she was singing with was somewhat a character, but you can hear little Jewelia hitting all the right notes!  

          

Jewelia was excited that her Daddy came and he even got to wear her Zebra hat.

First Public Performances!

Jewelia was getting really good at her violin, and so this year, she joined her brothers performing at nursing homes, a church program, and at Maceys.  She could go and play her violin and even make tip money at Maceys.  This was something new and fun!  

Usually, Jewelia would play about 6 songs.  She always got lots of compliments and people asking who her teacher was and how old was she.  

One of the songs she played was from the Polar Express.  It is called "Believe".
Here is a video from when she was practicing at home:

           

Christmas, Why Can't I Find You?

Jewelia is singing a new Christmas solo this year.  She is singing for a Christmas program and some times at Maceys.  

Here is a video from home of her singing "Christmas, Why Can't I Find You?"

         

And So Christmas Begins

Jewelia has been so excited about Christmas this year.  She has so many concerts, recitals, and performances.  She began right away practicing some new Christmas songs on her violin.  

Here she is playing
"The Little Drummer Boy":

              

The Longest Song So Far

Jewelia is coming right along with her violin lessons.  She recently finished learning the very last song in Book 1 in Suzuki.  It was the longest song she has played so far.  

Here she is playing "Gavotte":

Think of Me Some More!

So, Jewelia really loves the Think of Me song from Phantom of the Opera.  First she played it on her violin, but now she has to sing it!

Here she is singing Think of Me while her brother accompanies her on piano:   
                     

Think of Me.....as a Zebra?

It is fall now, and it is getting colder outside.  Jewelia thought she looked cute in her mom's new Zebra hat.  

Inside, Jewelia has been learning a new song she picked out from the musical "Phantom of the Opera".  It is one of the longest songs she has ever played.  She finally finished learning it all last week.  It sounds a bit squeaky, but Jewelia's teacher tried playing it on Jewelia's violin and she decided that it was mostly fault of the violin.  She says the sound will continue to improve as Jewelia grows and moves up to a bigger size violin.  

Here she is playing "Think of Me":

Lovin' those Fiddle Songs

Jewelia really loves all the short little fiddle songs she can learn really fast.  Most of them have a teacher's duet part.  Some day we'll have to record them playing together at lessons, or maybe she'll play one at her next recital.  But, until then, you'll just have to hear the one side.

Here she is playing a different little tune called "Road to Boston":