I grew up in a home with a piano. I started taking lessons when I was five from a woman who lived with us. She likes to tease me now about what an exemplary student I was. Ha! I hated practicing. I wiggled. I told her I wasn't going to do it and she couldn't make me. Needless to say, lessons didn't go so well.
When I was in upper elementary school, I decided I wanted to play piano again. So my parents hired a girl from down the street to teach me. This time I was a lot more cooperative and actually practiced...usually. Okay, at least twice a week. Most weeks.
While I took formal lessons for a few years, most of my piano skills are the result of self teaching. My mom had a bunch of sheet music that I liked to fiddle around with until I could play harder songs from memory. I liked to make up my own music and composed quite a few less than awesome songs. When I moved out to go to college, my piano playing days ended.
Until this past spring when I bought a piano. I have wanted a piano again for years. First we didn't have room. Then we didn't want to buy one just to have to listen to three little kids bang away on it. So we waited until the kids were old enough to treat the piano with respect.
The piano has been sitting in my living room for about six months now. I have listened to six months of key banging, nonsense playing, Lizzy's two little songs that she made up and loves to play over and over and over, Joy's attempts at mimicking Lizzy's made up songs, but I haven't heard anything I would call pleasant to the ear.
Yesterday that changed. David and Lizzy had their first piano lessons from a real piano teacher. After one short lesson, they are both playing sounds that actually sound like something other than screeching cats. I wouldn't say it's music quite yet as they are just playing three to five keys in a melodic way. But it's from an actual piano book. With actual notes. Instead of random banging of piano keys played as loud as possible.
All I can say is that just the one lesson was worth every single penny. Thank you Nancy. My ears are much happier now:)
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