So what were you doing when you were eleven or twelve? Me? I was tooting on oboe, but not anywhere near the advanced level. And mostly I was flirting with boys. If you visit this page you’ll see a young trio playing Beethoven.
I did play Beethoven (I played piano up until about the age of twelve) but I can guarantee you I wasn’t terribly good. At least I could “get around” on the keys. Sadly I quit and now can’t play at all. My students are allowed to laugh at me when I attempt to cover a piano part for them. I rarely even do it … it’s too darn embarrassing!
Stephen Waarts, the young violinist in this video will be soloing with Silicon Valley Symphony. He is currently twelve — which is why I don’t know if he was eleven or twelve when the video was done. (And no, Silicon Valley Symphony is not the group I play in; this group is a community orchestra. They used to have a big notice on their website saying “We had the name first!” which was kind of funny.) It would be fun to have a competition for young artists with Symphony Silicon Valley (Yes, this is the group I’m in). Maybe some year …?
Oh … the video also makes clear whey I refuse to ever be the page turner for a pianist. It’s too scary! 🙂
I think there are many musical…efforts? Niches? Whatever, things-to-do, including, for example, page-turning and playing the triangle, which are much more challenging (and under-appreciated) than one might think (presuming one hasn’t actually tried it). In page-turning timing is key, and is somewhat dependent on the person for whom one is page-turnificating, for example (note: Firefox does not seem to consider “turnificating” to be a real word, go figure).
The above list does not include moving do around, though (sheesh).
And I remember doing rehearsal piano for Once Upon a Mattress with a local (Los Altos) high school (back when I was barely out of high school – all the dinosaurs had just gone away) and having my mother attend a performance and think I had a page turner (until the bass player got up to resume her proper place – she felt nervous sitting all by herself, so she sat with me on the piano bench before the overture). I certainly had no objections (she was really cute, and even if she hadn’t been I was still pretty much 95% hormones at that point).
Oh, when I was 11/12? Let’s see, playing trumpet and just realizing (at 12, 7th grade) that not everyone could (or did, anyhow) play at the same level. It had honestly never occurred to me before then than I might be better or worse than any other person my age.