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It's all in the keys

I can't say for sure what my earliest memory might be, but I can certainly remember one of the most vivid — it was the day a piano was delivered to our house. I was four years old and it was an incredible moment.
It's all in the Keys
Earliest Memory

I can't say for sure what my earliest memory might be, but I can certainly remember one of the most vivid — it was the day a piano was delivered to our house.

I was four years old and it was an incredible moment. My baby sister was born that same year and although I have a memory of visiting the hospital I can't say the same of the day my parents brought her home. But oh how I remember the arrival of the piano.            

I loved that piano (I loved my sister too, don't get me wrong) but the piano was the most amazing thing in the world to me. I would pull the bench up as close as I could and just play and play, simply making it up as I went along. Soon I began piano lessons and the world of those black and white keys began to find some order.

I wasn't a great student. I loved to play but I did not like the technical work at all — especially scales. Alas, they're kind of important.

While my family was living in Swift Current, I began participating in music festivals. You want to see a dedicated parent? Take a look at those sitting for hours at a festival to listen to their child play for two minutes and spend the rest of the morning waiting for an adjudication.          

I won't soon forget competing in a sonatina class in which there were 17 students all playing the same sonatina. The same song, over and over and over again, all sounding pretty much the same. Finally, the last performer played. We thought the agony was over until we heard the adjudicator's voice from the back of the room asking three of the students to play the piece again.

To this day when I hear Sonatina in G Major by Beethoven, I feel a cold sweat threatening to take over my body.              

I still love the piano. Learning to play has given me amazing opportunities and actually is kind of responsible for the life I have had since I was introduced to my future husband because I played the piano. A story for another time.      

There's a lot that can be gleaned from thinking about a piano. First, some scales can be avoided. No, not the musical kind, but the bathroom kind. Don't get hung up on the numbers. Focus on being healthy and happy, and shut out the noise telling you that you don't look the way you should.   

Secondly, keep doing what you are doing because you never know when you will strike a chord with someone. The greatest masterpieces, discoveries and achievements didn't happen on the first attempt. It may take time, perseverance and the rejection of many different people before the right individual or colleague hears your idea and helps you run with it.  

Finally, not only are mistakes inevitable, they are valuable. Everyone, from beginner students to concert pianists, make mistakes as they rehearse and perform. But the mistakes teach us the lessons needed to keep going and finish strong. We don't need to be flawless, but we need to be faithful to our calling, whatever that may be.    

Whether we describe ourselves as musical or not, we can take what we know about pianos and put it to work in our lives. Whether it's major or minor events, and whether or not we are finding our rhythms on any given day, what matters is that we keep the music going. There may be 17 or more people seemingly doing the same thing we are doing but no two are doing it quite alike.

The key is to take each stanza and refine, revise and rework it so that it reflects who we really are and beautifully shapes the song of our life. That's my outlook.