Wednesday, November 23, 2005

The 5 Browns

6/13/05 - I read about these youngster pianists in Time for Kids and bought their dual disc CD/DVD. Lots of people tried to badmouth them in that they are just trying market themselves using the 5 piano and family gimmicks, but I think they are really talented. The interview included on the DVD was really interesting where they describe growing up learning the piano. They all started on their 3rd birthday where they would finally be able to take their hand-me-down piano books to school. And their mother, an trained opera singer, would tirelessly sit with each of them for 1 1/2 hours everyday, for a total of 7 1/2 hours a day (she must have had a cook, a nanny and a maid)!! Of course, they had 5 grand pianos in their (grand) house as well. There was another terrible interview where the interviewer asked after they said they had 5 pianos, were you guys fighting to use the piano? Duh, there is no way 5 kids can share a piano. I think 2 kids is the max. As soon as one starts to practice I can see the other one try to kick the first one off.

Of course I thought, oh no, Adam is already 4 1/2 and he hasn't started his piano lessons! I've been trying to teach him Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, but he really has no interest in it. The most I've gotten out of him is to play middle C, and he is still guessing most of the time. Since I started at 7, I don't think it's a lost cause yet, although he needs to show some interest. Dova, on the other hand, loves the piano. She'll definitely be starting at 3. At least she won't be fighting with her brother over the one piano.

11/23/05 - I had to come back to this post to report that Mommycast did some great interviews with the 5 Browns and also their parents. The one beef I had with their ever supportive mom was that she kept interrupting her poor husband constantly during the interview. If you have to have that kind of personality to raise 5 prodigies, I'll say, No Thank You!!!

1 comment :

Anonymous said...

Your comment about "if you have to have this kind of personality to have 5 kids...." reminded me of my wife and I and our "different" goals the number of kids we wanted to have. (we talked about this when we were married)

Anyways, I am an only child, and my wife has 5 brothers. (she is the oldest and only girl)

I wanted to have two kids because I didn't want them to be alone some time in the future....when we pass on. (hopefully WAY in the future...but I digress)

My wife on the other hand had dreams and vision of having 5 kids....

We never argued about it...I would simply say "we will see, and play it by ear as we go along".

Well, after we had our 2nd daughter...perhaps a couple of months after she came home I was sitting down with my wife and we again talked about our wonderful kids and how happy we were with them and our life plans in general....and I think I brought up the question once again something like: "So we have number two....are you still wanting to go for three, four and five?" To which she snapped back "Oh no, two is a great number....they will have each other and not be alone. I'd be happy to stop right here...it's hard enough to take care of two!".

We laughed about that sudden change of heart....and that we had both ended up happy with the same number. (Which I am sure can be a pressure for some families....as with my wife's parents. Her father kept wanting to have a 2nd daughter....and kept having sons! I think they wanted only 4 kids, but ended up with 6 because that ever elusive 2nd girl didn't came along :-)

In fact, my wife's parents were so excited when we had a 2nd girl....that was their dream. But their natural next question was "Well, don't you need to have a boy?"...to which my wife said something like "No, we are happy with two girls...besides, don't you think I learned anything from the two of you?" (they knew exactly what she meant)

Thanks for your blog entry....it resurrected some nice memories of my own life.