Playing the Piano Can Be a Pleasant Experience!

Rex bought us a beautiful baby grand. At first I was somewhat worried. Having that behemoth sitting in plain view inside my house would certainly resurrect the ghost of my mother, who would then somehow be able to scream the correct notes at me as I mistakenly played the wrong ones. I have piano issues.

When I was a kid, my mom’s biggest love/hate relationship was with her piano. It was all tied together with her insanity around the Mormon Church, and the fact that her own mother was an accomplished music teacher who must have taught around 3,500 students in her lifetime in Safford, Arizona. Opal had a “music room” that was attached to her home off of Highway 666. I’m not sure if it’s still called Highway 666, but it was then, and oh what a fitting name that was.

Although she was quite nice to me, I guess she was a horrific parent. My mom alluded to those horrors as I grew up, telling me the first time she wished for suicide when I was 5. Those threats continued on with me infrequently throughout her life. My mom *wanted* to be a great piano player so that she could adeptly play the piano or organ in church services to look like she could contribute as was expected of the daughter of an accomplished piano virtuoso.

My mom had a pained look on her face any time she played, she was her worst enemy. A missed note was like the end of the world to this woman. And subsequently, this became *my* worst fear as well. I believe my mom saw herself really enjoying it, and sometimes we could request songs and make her play them for us. As she romped through The Baby Elephant Walk, my favorite, we would make our arms become trunks and sway them back and forth tromping through the living room. Those happy moments were fleeting.

She would mostly end up in tears trying to tame the piano beast in her life. Sitting forlornly at the piano late into the Saturday nights knowing she had once again set herself up for failure agreeing that she’d spell a sick pianist at church. Sometimes she was able to keep a piano calling gig for a year or so, but that was the longest before it became impossible for her to face the pressure. If she missed a note in Sacrament Meeting, she would be mortified for months, and I assume her entire life, beating herself up anytime she got down pulling out those errant note instances as a way to bury herself in pain and get her out of the task.

But what I remember most was taking lessons from her, from my grandmother and from Thayne Larsen, a man who put a paper streamer over my hands so I simply couldn’t look down and see them on the keys anymore. He was uptight, mom was uptight, as was my grandmother when it came to the task of playing the piano. I wondered if there was any such thing as a happy piano player. My mom would be getting ready in her bathroom, or holed up in her bedroom, but still have the ability to shout at us the correct note any time I practiced. Her shaky, wailing voice shrieking, “That’s a B!” That’s supposed to be a B!”

She couldn’t help herself, but it sure made the five years of so of playing miserable for myself and my siblings. All of us eventually just stopped doing it. And that’s where I left it off all those years ago. I was somewhat expecting my mom’s ghost to suddenly animate the moment I plunked my first note on this piano. Hesitantly I tried it out, and no shrieking Sandy. So, I told Rex I was up for lessons. Her name is Kama Devi, and she comes to our home every Monday and the whole experience has been quite fun so far. I practice, make mistakes and just laugh it off. Who knew this could be so fun?! No hymns for me, thank you very much.

Tonight I read each note of Mozart’s Aria from Figaro Act 1 at 90 BPM and it’s been a errant-note-shoutfest-free experience! Yeah!

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