Thinking about playing music

[sugarplumkitty]

My dad got a baby grand piano that had been stored badly when I was a little kid. It had fallen apart. He rebuilt it in our garage. My earliest memories of playing piano was when my sister taught me chopsticks and Heart and Soul. We'd play those endlessly in the garage. My gramma had a lovely upright piano. She seized on my interest and started me working through lesson books at her house. To make it easier for all the kids in the family to learn, she made a deep scratch on middle C. Unfortunately, the books she chose had numbers over the notes and I didn't learn to read music. The books bored me. The hardest thing Gramma taught me was Brahm's Lullaby in the back of the #2 level book. She did teach me my scales and fingering for them. I liked practicing.

My mom worked full time, so in the hours I was home alone (my sister was supposed to be there but was usually at a friend's house) I'd put on fake concerts. I'd play all the little tunes I'd memorized at Gramma's. I'd end with an improvised thunderstorm. Then I'd stand up and bow.

Mom played moderately well, having taken piano lessons most of her childhood. She wasn't able to improvise at all, but I loved hearing her play. My favorite was the Bumble Boogie! Sometimes we'd all stand around the piano and sing popular songs together as she played. I loved that!

I learned to read the treble clef in the cherub choir at Gramma's church. The reverend's wife led us and taught us FACE for the spaces and Every Good Boy Does Fine for the lines. Nobody in cherub choir sang on the bass clef, so we never learned to read that staff.

I could figure out the treble clef, though I was lazy and usually picked the tune out by ear. The music was just a reference when I got stuck. LOL I watched Mom's fingers as she played to get the bass notes. Because I also play by ear for the parts I didn't memorize by sight, I had her fooled. She didn't realize I couldn't read music until I was in high school. When she found out, she got wily. She showed me how to play the first movement of Paderewski's Minuet in G and then refused to show me the remaining movements. She said I had to learn to read music if I wanted to play it. She granted me permission to write the letters of the notes in pencil. It worked. By the time I finished learning it, I could read music by sight. I was quite slow, but I could do it. Every Car Eats Gas stuck. There was another mnemonic for the lines but it was too close to the treble staff to stick.

I know I've said many harsh things about my mom during my childhood, but this is one thing I thank her for.

At my request, for Christmas one year I was given a collection of Beethoven, Bach and Chopin. While I lived at home, I was working my way through the easier pieces. Bach is the easiest because he wrote a lot for his love as she learned the harpsichord. Ever hear of Fur Elise? (imagine an umlaut over the 'u'). For Elise, his love.

Correction: Bach is the easiest because he wrote a lot for someone who was learning the harpsichord. Beethoven wrote Fur Elise.

I've got a beautiful antique upright grand piano now that I can't play. It's got a bad string (the C below middle C) and no repair person wants to take on fixing it. I've got the right string now but the universal repair string it had when I bought it from my uncle Joe ruined the peghole. It won't stay in place. Apparently the hole needs to be drilled out for a larger peg. I also need to get that larger peg. I was so excited when Uncle Joe sold it to us for $200 that I went on ebay and found the Mammoth classical music book my mom had with Paderewski's minuet in G. If only that string were fixed and if only I had a proper stool to sit on I could relearn that minuet, trills and all.

Gotta get ready for work now. Later, I'll post about the other instruments I've played.

Comments

[gladtobehere.livejournal.com]

LOL...

bass lines are: good boys don't fool around
bass space: all cows eat grass

so theryago :D

that's wonderful that you have music Linda...

andy

[sugarplumkitty.livejournal.com]

Music is why I was able to become a programmer despite my learning disability with math. My dad told me it had been part of who I was from the very beginning.

[fortune-cookie.livejournal.com]

Only playing clarinet and singing soprano most of my life, I never got fluent in bass clef. I learned to read it from music theory, but coming to music school where I write and read and play in it every day has helped immensely. They have great piano books for adults that focus on problem areas like that. I'm glad you started out so young - I always wish I had had access to a piano:) Also, the one you have now sounds like it'll be beautiful when it's repaied.

[sugarplumkitty.livejournal.com]

I hope it will be. Uncle Joe bought it used in the 1920's. He told me a lot of famous people played it when they sat in with his big band. They all signed the back. Unfortunately, I've only seen it up against a wall and it would ruin our floor to slide it out. Someday I want to read those names!

[angelsmum.livejournal.com]

I played cello in high school so I had to learn bass clef, I can't remember it now though. Most of the time, no matter what I was playing, I wrote the notes in and/or learned it by heart. I'd love a piano!

[alessandrastarr.livejournal.com]

Hi, Für Elise, aka Bagatelle in A minor", WoO 59, was not composed by Bach, it was composed by Beethoven. It's also the ringer on my cell phone :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fur_Elise

[sugarplumkitty.livejournal.com]

Drat. I miscalled that one. I knew it was by one of the big B's!

[alessandrastarr.livejournal.com]

It's okay, probably no one else would have noticed, but it's a favorite song of mine, which is why it's the cell phone's ringer :)