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The story of my experiments with Piano
Piano looked grand and the black and white keys looked so inviting and whenever I got a chance, I never hesitated to run my fingers and press keys in random and those blaring notes were music to my ears and with a flourish like Tom and Jerry, I end my show.
But, that was before I started to take lessons for playing Piano. As a beginner, I am writing this post. This journey made me ecstatic at times, frustrating many a times and there were times when I sat before my Piano and wondering exactly like the man in the picture with a stupefied expression not knowing which key to touch. I used to stare at the sheet before me and I was told that all those musical symbols, we've seen on CD racks has meanings and that too complicated one at that. After 21 years, I started doing my homework, classwork and practicals and tests too.
There are loads of notations for almost everything. Whenever I raise my right hand to eat, I see it as "Treble clef", the lovely symbol that we see everywhere... the symbol that always attracted me towards music. Now left hand is altogether different, the symbol actually matches my doubts... 'a question mark followed by a 'colon'. I seriously contemplated of having two tattoos on both the wrists of my hands. Right is Treble clef and left is bass clef. But, it got trickier. Not just hands, every finger had a name/letter. Since, I started with my right hand, I am quite confident and comfortable playing with right. Left hand is little awkward for me. I kept addressing my left Index finger also as D instead of B and got confused if G comes before F? It does when I play those keys. If I am logically sound, I shouldn't have such doubts as there is another octave before and it starts with a C and G comes after F :O Now! now! don't leave yet... please... I didn't even start on semi breve, minim, crotchets, quaver, semiquaver, dotted minim, dotted crotchet, stave, time signatures and Rests... rest is taking pauses while playing and they have notes too... :O
Let's not get too technical, as it is tough on me as well :) In short instead of having two tatoos, I decided to tatoo every finger with the letter they denote. But, to my horror, I realised that there are 88 keys and seven octave plus. OMG! now should I ask someone to lend their hands? not practical. So, I decided to follow my teacher methodically and I was so attentive at times, the keys and the sheet which held musical notes zoomed in and the rest out of focus (including my teacher). Zooming in always have problems. The note becomes big and I end up pressing one and half a key instead of one. But, I really really admire her patience, there are times when I clearly read notes wrong or start with a wrong hand.
All said and done, I did finish my first book and now play around 20 nursery rhymes and vande mataram and learnt to play "thandavam" theme music. Am I happy? Yes, I am very much. But, is my teacher happy? She says she is happy and I trust her words. I end this post, in an optimistic note that I would laugh my heart out when I read this post after a year. If I don't then I will silently delete this post.
6 Candles:
Reading thru this itself made my head swirl a bit....Thank god i chose percussions and not a classical instrument like priya...not that percussions doesnt have any notations, but definitely not so confusing...all power to you...pretty soon, i want to see you write another post about your first grade exam...
Priya and Viji are adventurous... I am like my teacher... Thanks to Pri for bearing with me all these days...I would love to write another post after my first grade exam... but the examiner am not sure would live to read that post... thanks for the read and leaving your comment :)
yes viji,u might be experimenting with the piano, but i enjoyed the nice lullabies that u played for all these days..dont know why whatever u play it sound like that to me until you tell me what u are exactly playing..;). All the best for your test.
Your piano lessons sounds alike my eng grammar lessons, pretty confusing :P but you know that "no great thing is created suddenly" so keep trying and learning with patience :)
There is a saying “The piano is a monster that screams when you touch its teeth.” I believe you won't let it scream after sometime. :)
Not sure how to take this as a compliment or? sigh! nope i am taking it as a compliment :)
ha ha kaushal... good quote. you are right, I won't give up that easily.. so the lessons would continue and torturing you and sujatha will also continue ;)
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