When I was in elementary school I started taking piano lessons from our Instrumental Music teacher, Mr. Bill McMath. Mr. Mac was always the fun teacher; at least that's how I remember it. Much more so than Mrs. Sutherland, the regular music teacher. Instrumental Music days were always fun, especially the times we worked with the pianos. Not to say that any of us knew how to play, except Elliot. But, then again, Elliot was good at everything. Us normal folk mostly enjoyed playing different chords. There were a few of us in my grade who could play guitar, though.
I guess that's why I got into piano in the first place. My mom managed to convince me that being able to play piano would be cool since no one else could, which, looking back, I recognize as a really flimsy argument. But whatever.
I don't remember most of the lessons. What I remember most is hating having to practice. I probably hated it most because my mom was there telling me what to play and how to play it, rather than letting me practice and play on my own. That's always been a huge hang up for me. I like to let my creativity flow rather than being restricted to a certain piece of music I don't want to play. That's also the reason I never joined the swim team. I don't like being told how to swim and for how long and how fast. I also can't dive, but that's not important. Also, the piano was super easy to hear throughout the house, so whenever I started playing my mom would rush upstairs to watch and critique me.
Sitting in that big empty playroom with just that old piano, which my grandmother got from her mother or aunt or something. Not that that made any impression on elementary school me. Looking up at the pictures on the wall in front of me. They were some paintings or drawings or something of the Vanderbilt campus where both my parents went to college. All I remember thinking was that this one section of hedge outside one building looked like an airplane. The big round window looking out onto our cove. That's what I remember.
I remember playing as the students filed in for Wednesday chapels, alternating weeks with Elliot. I played Star Wars. Elliot played Fur Elise. Douche. I guess it's not his fault, though. It's much more my fault that I didn't put the effort in to practice.
I also remember the day I decided to quit. I think I decided it on the drive over to school for lessons one day. I had had enough. I'm not proud of it, but I've always had a tendency to give up when things get hard. That's why I quit piano; that's why I almost didn't become an Eagle Scout. But my parents told me I wouldn't get my driver's license until I got Eagle. It worked. But the threat of not getting a driver's license wouldn't have worked in 5th grade.
I don't remember what piece I was supposed to be working on, but I hadn't done any practice. I still remember walking to the classroom that day, trying not to touch any of the red tiles on the multicolored checkerboard floor. Every day it was a different color. Sometimes red, sometimes blue, sometimes yellow. Yellow was the hardest. There were a lot of yellow tiles. Anyway, when I walked in to Mr. Mac's classroom I told him I wanted to quit. Just like that, without any context or reasoning. He spent the whole hour trying to talk me out of it, but I wasn't having any of it. He told my mom what i had decided when she came to pick me up. Of course she tried to talk me out of it too. I remember her telling me that I would regret it when I got older, not being able to play an instrument. But eventually they both let me quit.
I've come to understand the truth of my mom's words. Sort of. One thing I wasn't able to give up about piano lessons was that it had instilled in me a love of music, both listening to it and creating it. And I've always had an excellent memory, especially remembering things I hear. That's why spouting off huge chunks of movie dialogue has never been an issue for me. Neither has been remembering song lyrics. So if I couldn't play music, I decided I was going to sing it. I probably sucked at it when I was younger, but I've gotten better over the years. And singing has become my greatest passion in life, apart from Jesus. I still consider it my greatest failing in high school that I don't get on our a cappella group, Beg To Differ. Those guys are awesome. And I wanted so badly to be a part of that. That's the biggest reason I joined Frog Corps this year.
But anyway, although I loved singing, I was never able to play any of the songs I was singing. My best friend, Tripp, could though. His entire family is like musically engineered, or something. He taught himself to play the piano. And guitar. And bongos. OK, that last one's not that impressive. He even writes his own music. So does my big, Andrew O'Brien. All I can do is play a few chords from Dueling Banjos on guitar. And I've always been a little jealous of them. That's probably a big part of the reason I've decided to learn to play the banjo this summer, but if experience is anything to go by I'll quit before the summer is over. I hope I don't, though. We'll see.
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