[3/26/12] Monday Memories: Piano

I got to play my piano this past weekend.

Ummm...so what?

This semester has been so utterly crazy that I've hardly touched my piano. At all.

Which is sad, because I really love playing. It's a stress reliever for me and always has been. There's something about pounding on the keys and getting totally involved in playing that is very soothing to me.

I was asked a couple of weeks ago to accompany one of our young women on Easter Sunday when she sings "O, Divine Redeemer." That is one of my all-time favorite songs, so I was really excited.

She brought the music to Kailen at school on Friday so Kailen brought it home to me after school.

I just had to sit down and play it. A couple of times. And even though I haven't played this song for years, it all came back.

And it was awesome.

I taught a nutrition class Saturday morning at our Stake (a church unit made up of many wards) Relief Society Activity Day.  I wasn't really nervous until Saturday morning. I've taught pretty much this same class many times, but I was going to be teaching ladies I mostly didn't know who didn't know me (now, that makes sense, doesn't it...).

While I was waiting for Diane to come pick me up, I sat down and played some more. It really helped calm my nerves.

Playing the piano has always done this for me. I remember being really stressed out or upset about guy problems or friend problems or...whatever...as a teenager, and once I sat down to play, everything was better.

I started taking lessons when I was seven, so I've been playing for about 38 years. That is a long time.

One of my first performances was for a ward talent show. I was playing a jazz number (I can't remember the title), and when I got done, my mom was a bit frantic. I guess I had played the whole piece in an entirely different key, and she was stressed the whole time that I'd realize what had happened and freeze up. But I had not clue what had happened and it went well. I have never been good at any type of transposing, so this is kind of a funny thing.

When I was eleven we lived in Bakersfield, California, and the ward organist taught me how to play the organ. The organ in this building was kind of in a pit, so the first Sunday I played the congregation couldn't really see me, and they wondered how the organ was being played.

I started accompanying choirs at school in middle school, and through my sophomore year in high school. I even accompanied the two school musical (Highland High School and Pocatello High School) my sophomore year. We did "The Unsinkable Molly Brown." It was a great experience. I took lessons through my junior year in high school, but decided to quit. My teacher was really putting pressure on me to do these competitions where you had to memorize 13 pieces each year, and after two years of doing this, on top of my heavy school load and participating on the drill team, it got to be too much. He wanted me to practice several hours a day so I could be a concert pianist and I did not want to do either.

So we parted ways.

I took one semester of private lessons in college, but after realizing I was spending way more hours on this 1/2 credit class than on my 3 credit classes, I decided to stop taking lessons.

When we were growing up my parents really didn't pay my sister and I an allowance, they paid us to practice (my sister is an awesome violinist!). But if we didn't do well at our lessons due to lack of practice, we had to pay for our lessons. Since I had played for so many choirs, I got to be a really good sight reader. My mom would take me to my lessons, and with very little practice, my teacher would say, "Wow, that was really good!"

My mom would fume.

It was really not funny, of course.

I taught piano lessons in high school and then again after Zach and then Kamala were born, up until the time we moved to Georgia the first time. This was really nice because it allowed me to make some money and stay home with my babies. Zach started going with me to teach piano lessons when he was just a few weeks old.

I've played the organ off and on, more on than off, throughout the years, and I now play every other month in church. I've also accompanied numerous church and stake choirs through the years, and was pretty much the main accompanist for special musical numbers in church when we lived in Florida and Arizona. For several years in Arizona I accompanied for a lady who is an amazing choir director, the type of director that you have to watch every single minute because she might direct the same song differently every time. But I loved accompanying for her. We did some amazing music, even though after every practice I would come home pretty much exhausted from having to be at the top of my game the whole practice.  I really miss accompanying for her, and we have become great friends.

I've started accompanying our ward choir here and have accompanied a few musical numbers in church. I didn't do much of this our first several months here in Georgia, and I really missed it. With my crazy school and family schedule, "getting" to accompany someone forced me to "get" to play, which I really appreciated.

Our little girls really love it when I play the piano, too. Abby and Hailey will sit right beside me on the piano bench, or right at my feet the whole time I play. We call them our "piano puppies." It is very cute. They don't seem to be partial to any specific composer, they like everything.

I'm really thankful that my parents forced encouraged me to keep taking lessons when I was younger when I thought it would be nice to quit. Practicing the piano was not really at the top of my "fun things to do" list.

But all the hours of practicing, even when I really would rather have been doing something else, were so worth it.

And I'm so thankful that I can play.