Music, Memories and Maestros

A little over four years ago William started taking piano lessons (I've been thinking it was only three and was surprised when I counted it out that it really is four.... William reminds me of it quite often.) William just finished his theory book for his fourth set of books, which is quite the accomplishment, especially considering how much he "loves" theory. Needless to say we we wanted to celebrate and let everyone know what a great job he's done, and to also get everyone excited to continue in their own piano endeavors.

The party was a "black and white affair," meaning that those attending needed to be dressed in black and white. Our decorations were all black and white too.

The kids were greeted by black and white streamers, balloons and pictures of various musical images, such as sharps, flats, the treble clef, Mozart and Beethoven's silhouette, etc.

The table was decorated with a black table cloth with a white table cloth used as a table runner down the middle. I cut up some music and taped them together into a long strip of paper and put it down the middle of the white table cloth and put a "music" centerpiece on it as well. We used our white bowls and had black silverware and white napkins as well. Basically anything we could find that would compliment our color scheme. It was fun and the kids loved it.

Here's my cool centerpiece.
Mia was so cute in her black and white spotted coat. She had a lot of fun being with the family.
Here's our little personality meter. Notice that Elizabella is all natural.
William was the "Theory Man" for the night and got to wear this cool hat. I was surprised that he actually wore it throughout the whole party. I was pretty impressed by the treble clef. Took me a whole 30 seconds.
Check out these cool clothes. You actually can't see my black leggings. It was pretty sweet, but I wasn't too sad no one stopped by. Ha ha. Here are our refreshments. I was trying to keep with our color theme and could only think of Oreo cookies that sounded good and are black and white. They are supposed to represente whole notes. The kids all loved them (and so did Ron and I). Overall we had a really fun night.

For our games we did a little relay game where we used flashcards to see whole knew their musical notes the best. Ron really impressed me by how well he knew them. Everyone did really good.

We also played a "cake walk" type game. I had pictures of various musical theory pieces on the wall in the kitchen and living room. Someone played the piano while the rest of us walked around and when the music stopped we touched a picture. The piano player then drew out a picture that corresponded with the pictures on the wall and if your was chosen then you took you're off and it was your turn to play the piano. It was fun and we also reviewed our theory at the same time.

We ran out of time, but these were some other games I had thought of doing:

Mozart's Memory- a music matching game

Beat Beethoven- Which time signature belongs with which

Put the Piano together- Who can put the black notes in the correct places on a piano with only

white keys.

Musical Spelling- I copied some pages from a theory book where they spell words using musical

notes.

We're excited for our next musical party. Go theory! GO!!!