The Entertainer

We all know that each child gets half his genes from his father and the other half from his mother. I am SO glad that the kids inherited the musical gene from his father. (No offense to my parents and our genes but we have other strengths.) Perhaps the closest I could contribute to their musical gene pool was the desire-for-music gene, the musical talent gene donor is mainly MacGyver.

MacGyver comes from a family of musicians, not the run of the mill musicians, but honest-to-goodness performing and on-stage musicians and entertainers. Both his parents love music. MIL graduated top of her class at Holy Ghost. She majored in Piano performance, is a dedicated piano teacher and is still active in their church choir. FIL, though an engineer, always loved to sing. Their children, MacGyver included, were all into music even if only one of them opted for Music as a second course in College. Some of them have been on stage performing at one time or another. The credits include a sister who played the piano for Andrea Bocelli's Asian tour as well as several theater productions including Miss Saigon with Lea Salonga, two other sisters who were back-up singers for Martin Nievera in the show Martin After Dark, a brother who won the National Amateur Competitions for Young Artists (NAMCYA) when he was in high school. They were often at the Cultural Center of the Philippines, as children, performing on stage with Imelda Marcos in the audience. MacGyver recalls their uncredited participation in the movie Maynila: Sa Kuko ng Liwanag. Max Jocson, who made the music for the movie, was MacGyver's brother’s NAMCYA trainer and was making the movie at the time. Mr. Jocson did some taping of the siblings singing at Project 7 which he incorporated into the movie somehow. (At least that is what MacGyver remembers.)

I seriously asked MacGyver if being good in music was a prerequisite for our marriage. He teased me that the requirements were either to be an engineer or a musician, and since I had graduated from Engineering, that'd do.

At the onset, none of our children seemed to be inclined towards music. The farthest we had gotten was GI singing "we'll count our blessings instead of sheep" during a Christmas program for FIL and MIL when he was 3. However, as time passed, GI found himself drawn towards playing the guitar, primarily due to 3rd Year Christian Living teacher. We were happy to support this interest. He started off with an acoustic guitar. Then at a certain point, Father gave him an electric guitar when he had seen GI's reaction to a cousin of mine playing the guitar. Given the musical genes in his system, it didn't come as a surprise for us that GI is able to play the guitar so well. Though his initial teacher is his guitarist uncle, GI continues to teach himself new pieces by reading (and writing his own) tabs in the computer.

With GI busy with the guitar, we encouraged RD and MyGirl to find the instrument of their choice. They opted to learn how to play the piano from MIL. Since MacGyver plays the keyboards, we were happy that the children decided to go for the piano. MIL has a baby grand in their house. This is where the children had their lessons. The children went through book after book after book. MIL was ever so patient to teach them how to play.

As the time for us to leave the country approached, MIL made sure that the children had some sort of recital to mark the culmination of their lessons. It was held in the living room at Project 7 and was captured on video by MacGyver. She was quite pleased with the children’s progress. She wasn’t sure whether their interest in the piano would be lost as we moved away. I don’t think that she expected the children to pick up from where she left off.

One of RD's piano pieces was "The Entertainer." When MacGyver told RD that there were several parts to the whole piece and that he'd only mastered the first part, RD was determined to learn the rest of the piece. The first part was all that MIL had been able to teach RD given the time. RD took the initiative to search the internet for the other parts of the piece. Then when we arrived in Australia, RD would listen to the music, read the notes and practice on the keyboards available to him.

'The Entertainer' is a nice entertaining piece that even MyGirl and one of their other cousins decided to learn the simple piece. They all enjoyed playing this piece so much that their older cousins issued a decree banning them from playing it. The penalty must not have been so severe because this didn't stop the kids from playing. And moreover, it didn't stop RD from volunteering in school to play the piece for their week 7 walk-in.

Yes, it is true. RD actually volunteered to play in front of the WHOLE school.

Every Monday, all the children of the school gather in the hall for assembly. As the children enter the hall, they have one or more student perform in front until everyone has entered the hall.

Here we have RD in his first public piano performance.

And his encore. (There were still some students entering the hall so the Assistant Principal asked him to play some more).