Poetry and Hums

I started taking piano lessons when I was 6 years old, and I've been playing ever since. There were occasional bumps in the road....like the time when I was 9 or 10 and I wrote my mom a letter telling her I wanted to quit; or when I wouldn't practice my scales or warm-up exercises and would fumble my way through my lesson pretending like I knew what I was doing. 

There were times that I would hide a certain piano book in the way back part of the shelf, and then claim I couldn't find it when it came time for lessons....just so that I wouldn't have to play that one song. 

But mostly, from the get-go...I loved music, and I still do. 

When I hear certain songs, no matter how much time has passed, I'm taken back to a specific place, doing a specific thing, surrounded by specific people.  Most are times that hold deep feeling- joy, sadness, hurt, excitement- and the music is filed away in my mind just as clearly as the memories.

Sometimes music was the release of all that deepness.  I'd find myself sitting down in front of those keys and pounding out Beethoven's 5th Symphony as hard and loud as I could. Other times I'd sit down and play some popular love song thinking things would turn out just like in the movies. And there were times I'd play the saddest, most pitiful sounding song just so that I could wallow in the misery of a broken heart.

Music is the voice of the soul...

so now I teach. Three nights a week I'm either driving around town to teach in different homes, or teaching from mine. I remember as a kid wanting to be really good. And I see that same passion in my students...the accomplishment they feel when they've passed a song or filled a sticker chart. The relief in some when I say "Yes!! That's what I wanted to hear!", and they learn, and grow, and advance. It makes me so proud**

I hope someday that Blake will want to learn....right now the piano is just a cool, loud toy to him. But even if it's not piano, I hope that he finds the same love of music that I've found <3

Poetry and Hums aren't things which you get, they're things which get you. 

And all you can do is to go where they can find you. 

 ~Winnie the Pooh~