Diary: My Kawai

When I was about 14 I decided I wanted to learn the piano. I saved up my money and bought one out of the Trading Post for $500. I had to fry a lot of burgers at McDonalds to save that much! Anyway, the family I bought if from must've thought it was their lucky day that someone wanted to buy it. All I remember was it was brown and had several dud keys on it - one that made a thump instead of a low note, and one up high that sounded like a spring and just happened to be the note that one of my pieces finished on. 

I studied piano for a year or so, then decided I was more concerned with having lovely fingernails - playing piano and having lovely fingernails are mutually exclusive I sadly learnt, and obviously at 15 my fingernails took priority! I wish someone had convinced me to stick with it... but teenagers know everything and I'm sure I wouldn't have listened to a word.

Well, nearly twenty years later I am picking up where I left off. My second hand Kawai got delivered last week and how beautiful it is! I visited a sheet music shop to purchase some music - a children's learning book, an adult's learning book and as incentive, a score of George Winston's music which I hope one day to be able to play.

Surprisingly, I'm not too bad. I can read music, a bit clumsily but with practice I know I'll get better. Tom and Charlotte are enjoying sitting on my lap trying to play too. When I am allowed to practice, it is completely absorbing and very fulfilling - great stress relief, and good for the brain! If the kids are asleep Tim tinkers with his digital photography and I softly pick my way through Jericho or Oranges and Lemons. I'm a long way off George Winston, but I've learnt the value of perseverance.