Carol of the Bells on the Grand Piano

Caleb continues to play on the grand piano at Maceys. He always opens with Carol of the Bells. His "BAM!" song as he calls it. It's taken a while to post it on here because we've had to record it several times. Each time we start recording him at Maceys, people are always coming up asking all these details about how old Caleb is and how long has he been taking lessons and other questions. This recording had the least amount of commentary, so I posted this one.

Everyone loves Caleb when he plays at the store. He starts with Carol of the Bells, and always ends with Do You Hear What I Hear which he sings along with. We'll see if we can get a posting of that one later.

Russian Dance performed on the Grand Piano

Caleb played his second night at Maceys on the grand piano. Here he is playing yet another song from his beloved Nutracker. Although it is a different arrangement than you might be used to, this is "Russian Dance":

Caleb is Performing at Maceys!

Caleb wants everyone to know that he is performing this year at Maceys on the grand piano! He is so excited. Here are some pictures from his opening performance.

He played 4 songs from the Nutcracker;
March, Dance of the Reed Flutes, Chinese Dance, and Russian Dance.

He also played:

Do You Hear What I Hear,
Carol of the Bells
Go Tell It On the Mountain,
The Entertainer,

Still in the practicing are:

O Holy Night and
I Wonder As I Wander

We'll post some video soon.

Do You Hear What I Hear?

Caleb's brother loves to sing, so many times the two will pair up. Here he plays while his brother sings Do You Hear What I Hear:

Dance of the Reed Flutes

Caleb just loves that Nutcracker--Here is his Dance of the Reed Flutes....once he gets past a couple of lousy chords, he does pretty good. If you look closely you might find it interesting to see how his left hand must move up and down on the piano to hit the notes. A normal sized pianist can just stretch their thumb and pinky to reach these notes written, but for Caleb, his hands aren't big enough, so he must move his hand back and forth to reach between the 2. It is like this in a lot of songs he plays. Sometimes if they are chords he has to choose to play the top or bottom part of the chord if he can't reach.

For Uncle Mark

Ok, so no one will really appreciate this song as much as Uncle Mark, for he will know what this is. This is a song written and composed a long time ago for Mark. This is just the chorus, but see if you can remember the words......Rachel might remember this too.

Caleb's Song Endings

So, once upon a time, Caleb's Mommy showed him how she liked to add an extra low octave note to the end of every piano song, kind of extra ending--like a trademark.

Well, Caleb decided his trademark would be what he calls a "BAM!" at the end of every song where he has to play the same note high and low at the same time and up a couple octaves.

So, every song now ends with all these extra "Caleb notes".

Here's an example:

Crazy kid! He's got them all added onto all his songs now.

Go Tell It On The Mountain!

Here's another song to add to the Christmas practicing.....don't worry, we gave you the shortened version.

Let the Christmas Practicing Begin!

Last year Caleb played the grand piano in the lobby of the Maceys Grocery store for their Holiday Open House and during Christmas time. People watched in awe as what they thought was a 3 year old playing the piano (little did they know he was just a short 5 year old at the time).

He got some pretty good tips though. One day he made out with over $20 in cash from his tip jar. I think this is how he began the idea of wanting to be a professional piano player. It was like, "I can play for MONEY!?"

Anyway, he is excited to play again this year. They have their Open House in November usually, so today he began making a list of all the songs he is going to play.

This is Caleb's Blog

This is a blog dedicated to Caleb, our 5 year old piano player. He loves to play so much for an audience that we have given him his own blog to where he can play as much as he wants for all those who want to hear.

Check back every once in a while for new performances or to show all your friends what a cute little piano player our Caleb is.

From Very Beginning to Now.....

Here was Caleb at 4 years old when we first introduced him to the piano and showed him a few notes to play:



And then here was only 2 months later when we realized he had a gift playing "Chinese Dance" from the nutcracker:



And then here he is today where he prints out The Entertainer off the internet and plays such a long song: (Oh, and pardon the slowness, but he was trying to show me how he could play more slowly because normally he tends to play so fast and at a rhythm all of his own--hence the head bopping...)



We love to hear him play. He gives us chills. It's not that he's perfect, and it's not that he doesn't make mistakes, but as I keep reminding my husband, he's 5! And look at him! He learned this all on his own!