Tuesday, October 4, 2022

The Piano


     Sometime around my eighth birthday my parents invested in a piano. 

Before that my brother's accordion, which he brought from Germany, accompanied all our singing at home. The upright piano was a refurbished model which had a mirror installed above the piano music stand. I was privileged to receive piano lessons. My brothers would have enjoyed music lessons but war time Germany made that impossible. When I started lessons with Mrs. Rasmussen, who lived around the block from us, I had no idea how vital the piano and the skill of playing the piano would be in my life. I had a small flash of light when I accompanied my family for the first time during our Christmas Eve singing. I remember feeling useful and important because I could read and play the Christmas songs.

I was a mercurial pianist. Sometimes I loved it and sometimes I noodled away the minutes doing nothing.   I had a good ear and a flair for improvisation which my teacher painstakingly tempered with diligent note reading practice. She would often say, "That's a lovely invention  but it's not what the composer wrote." 

I give my mother full credit for any success I achieved because she insisted I practice and she sat in the living room listening. That made a huge difference. When she listened, without judgement or correction, I practiced more attentively.


All of my shenanigans and insights at the piano were like shafts of light foreshadowing the future when I would repeat these sayings to my own piano students.



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2 comments:

  1. Oh, Yay! Fellow pianist! I had a mother who made me practice as well. I also gave piano lessons. But I, alas, did not have the ability to noodle away and invent things. I finally learned how to write music in high school and I still have a few things I wrote, but they aren't very good, and my life took me in a different direction. Yes! Today I will pay attention to those shafts of light! Blessings ...

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    Replies
    1. Thank you commenting. I always like to hear about other pianists.

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