I have been playing the piano since I was barely 8. Now I'm 15. So, I have been playing for quite a few years! I never quit and just like any other instrument-player, once in a while I have doubts. But somehow I can never walk away from the piano. It's full of possibilites and wonder. I sit at my piano for hours making music fill the air. It's so delightful! If I had to guess, I think I'll be playing piano forever. : ) You are about to read a story of hope and inspiration that I decided to share with you. : )
When I was about 5, I used to play around on my mothers friends piano. Whenever we would visit her, I'd go straight to her piano! At that time, my mother figured that I was just a little curious child. But to her surprise, a few years later I started piano lessons(at 8)with a very nice piano teacher. (my Dad got a FREE 100-year-old piano from a friend of his which I still luv) Anyways, the piano teacher was TOO easy for me, though! It was crazy.. Every so often, he'd say that I "was ahead of him" and that I "was his favorite student"! I was progressing real fast and I was happy about that. But, yes, it did seem like everything was going just a bit too easy for me. I needed to be challenged. I need more. I knew the notes on the page but I wanted more than that. I wanted to learn about the notes and get more "real" music like Beethoven and Bach. Then at age 13, my parents and I made a tough decision. We would switch me to a harder "real" teacher that knew how to really really play the piano. (you see, the first one just happened to know a little about piano but that was it!) So we found out about an older woman (she's 60 something) who lived about 10 minutes away. I'll never forget the first day I walked up to her house and knocked shyly on her door. She told me to pick out any piece I wanted to play, so I did. I picked out a song I had worked on for a while with my 1st piano teacher.(I had brought a big pile of books I had used for many years) I began to nervously play, hitting wrong notes that seemed to really stick-out. She stopped me when I was finished. She corrected me of all the wrongs I had done. I was astonished. All those years I was just getting teached the basics and the goal was always to play the song. But there's more to piano than just playing the song! I'd never realized how big the "piano world" was. She had to teach me how to count measures, know what kinds of notes there were, and more. I was frustrated sometimes but kept trying. My first teacher had done such a poor job of teaching me and I'd wanted to learn soo much. Well, right now, I'm still with my "new" piano teacher and I'm still having a blast with my piano. I love playing fancy pieces by Beethoven and more. Iam so delighted to know that I can realize what music means and what music is really all about. Piano is something that I'll never leave, nor forget. It is sometimes a challenge, but it's well worth my time. : )
~*Rachel*~