A number of years ago, far more than I would like to admit, I used to play the piano. I used to think I was decent at it, but certainly far from proficient. Whether or not that was true is irrelevant; we are all confined by the limitations we believe about ourselves.
After a few years of receiving piano lessons and discovering that music could cut deeper than a knife under the wrong circumstances, I stopped playing. Many people have the ability to be stirred by the music they hear. It became too difficult for me to play music for this reason. I just could not keep my emotions in check any more. I still sat at the piano on random occasions, but it was to play the same few songs that comforted me instead of trying to branch out into anything new.
Fast-forward a few years from that awkward teenage angst to the years when I had a house, husband, and one child. My childhood piano found its way into my living room. I sat with my daughter and played a number of children's songs while she and I sang the lyrics, off-key, of course. I attempted to play Christmas carols when that season was upon us, but always felt that overwhelming urge to just shut down and stop playing.
When my second child was born, she kept me hopping. She was up pretty much all stinking night for the first five months of her life, and had several health issues that kept me worried. I no longer had the desire to plink away at songs on the piano. I was simply too overwhelmed.
By the time my youngest was born, I had almost completely forgotten about ever playing the piano again. I tried once, while he sat on my lap, to return to the children's songbook and hoped I could at least fake my way through the right hand's notes. My son screamed his head off and covered his ears. He could not handle the sensory input, and I gave up the idea of trying to pick up where I had left off three years before his birth.
When my oldest turned seven, I sought a piano teacher for her. I wanted to find some activity she could do that would not require me to have to entertain her two younger siblings, who both had different health and behavioral issues, while trying to instruct and monitor a group of kids. I had to pull her out of her Girl Scout troop because they were suddenly mandating that a parent volunteer at a couple of meetings a year, and I just could not do it, not with her younger siblings present. Piano lessons seemed like a good match at that time.
Turns out, this was an excellent decision. My son was able to handle the piano playing from a distance even if he could not handle the noise up close. My daughter was able to immerse herself in music, and it appears that she inherited my musical talent. She absolutely loves it. She keeps telling me she wants to be a pianist when she gets older. I think that is a wonderful aspiration, although I do wish she would pronounce it correctly so people wouldn't look at me oddly every time she makes that declaration.
Last Saturday, at her piano lesson, her piano teacher asked her if she ever heard of Billy Joel. I piped up that she darn well better have heard of him, given that we've played a number of his songs for her at various points in her life. In fact, one of the few songs she had heard me play on the piano was a very rusty-sounding Piano Man. This sparked a discussion between her piano teacher and myself, and we compared various compositions of that very song. My daughter was assigned a fairly simple version of the tune to work on this week.
Every day now, I hear my daughter plinking away at a tune I used to adore. I think back to the days when I would play my version of Piano Man, or listen to another friend play it, and anyone who was nearby would just start singing along. It is the one song I equate the most with my high school drama club days, and I once again find the old stirring of emotions when it comes to that song. That pull became so strong that I actually dug out my old sheet music and attempted to play it once more.
Yes, I am rusty at making my fingers move the way they should. Yes, I make mistake after mistake, and I am no longer able to sing and play at the same time. It takes all of my concentration just to play the few notes I am able to still hit accurately. However, I feel it again. I feel the lure of music as an emotional outlet. I feel like I might be able to regain some of my lost abilities if I start practicing regularly once the kids return to school in September. I feel hopeful that I have not lost my own talents at the keyboard. One song, long since mastered and then forgotten, has given me back something of my own when I least expected such a boon. Thank you, Billy Joel.
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