Practice Marathon...

A couple weeks ago Haley's orchestra had a Practice Marathon where the kids were to get sponsors then keep track of their practice for the week to help raise money for the orchestra. Haley practiced her usual, well a little less than her usual a couple days because it was a really busy week. She logged 17 hours of practice and won the prize for the most hours practiced.

She is looking forward to a different kind of practice marathon tomorrow. Once a week Haley practices with Madi, a wonderful violinist who graduated from Juilliard a couple years ago. Madi has been working with Haley for the past two years. She is young and Haley looks up to her. She always seems to work on the same things Haley's classical teacher thinks is important and she mostly helps Haley polish her orchestra music so she doesn't use regular lesson time for that.

Tomorrow will be their 2nd practice marathon. Haley will spend a few hours practicing at Madi's. Madi will give her bits of her piece to work on then leave her to practice those bits. Haley really enjoyed the 1st marathon around Christmas and has been asking and asking to have another.

Last week Haley started learning Praeludium and Allegro by Fritz Kreisler. This piece has been one of her favorites to listen to and she is really excited to be working on it. I haven't seen her this excited to work on a piece in awhile. She had asked her teacher when she can move up to a 3/4 size fiddle and her teacher gave her the choice of moving up a size and working on a slower piece or keeping her current fiddle and learning Praeludium. Guess what her choice was!