A Musical Interlude

Last year, my kids listened to Mozart’s “Turkish March” in music class at school.  I love classical music, and have that piece on CD so we’d listen to it in the car.  We also have a piano and a book of Mozart’s more famous pieces, and I glanced through it once but didn’t see “Turkish March” in the index.  My son, however, being more astute than I from time to time, did spot something interesting and handed me the book, open to a page titled “Rondo ala Turka” and asked, “Is this the Turkish March?”

I looked at the first few bars, and confirmed that it was indeed the Turkish March.  Then my son just stood there, staring at me expectantly. 

“You want me to play this?” I asked.  He nodded.  “It’s going to take me a while,” I said, but I sat down at the piano and started plunking away.

It did not take me long to figure out that I lack the keyboard skills to pull this piece off; I’ve been schooled in music theory and I can read music, but I never took a piano lesson.  I can play guitar (and bass), though, so I tried switching instruments.  Much better.

It took me a whole summer to learn the piece, and by the time I got through it I became bored with it so I started playing it with a swing beat to make it more interesting (for me, at least).  It’s not perfect, but it doesn’t totally suck, so I give you Mozart’s Rondo ala Turka (ala Ricka):