My Days of Piano Playing

Once upon a time, just like most people, I was six years old.  And when I was six years old, I started learning to play piano.

You see, we'd moved into this house that had a piano, so Mom decided to teach me.  Which was fine.  I wanted to learn.  Unfortunately, it didn't go over as a complete success, meaning after about three years and a move, I kind of stopped.  In those three years, I managed to get through one book and a bit into the next book.

Clearly, music was not part of my future career, although I did have fun sometimes.  The rest of the time was me getting frustrated because I couldn't just do this automatically.

Random fact:  If I don't get something automatically, I tend to get very frustrated and practically need someone to keep pushing me to keep going.

Anyway, I'm sure my musically inclined friends are interested in knowing what in the world this was like.

Well, first of all, I remember something about "All Cows Eat Grass," "Good Boys Do Fine Always," "Every Good Boy Does Fine," and "FACE."  However, if you want me to remember which ones belong on treble clef and bass clef, you will be left standing there for five minutes while I close my eyes and basically go into my deep thinking zone until I finally remember.  And don't talk or try to help while I'm thinking.

Seriously, though, I actually have more musical knowledge than I let on stored in my head.  I just pretend to be stupid because it wouldn't be fair if I appeared to be a genius about something I'm not even good at.  But I'm not kidding when I say I can't tell a violin from a viola.  That is the truth.

What is the difference?  Who cares?  Why can't I remember this for more than ten seconds?  I don't even understand how these are two different instruments.

Anyway, that is completely off topic.  Anyway, just know that the video evidence of me playing piano sounds writhingly terrible.  Seriously, I found the video when I was about 16 and wanted to plug my ears.  I was that terrible.

You know what made it worse though?  Sometimes, I just had to sing while trying to play.  Now, my mom told me, "This isn't something you should be trying yet.  This is difficult."  But, seriously, at age six, can you honestly play "Jesus Loves Me" without having to sing it sometimes?  Like, seriously, sometimes, I just had to sing the song.  And I couldn't just sing or just play.  No, I had to unleash my off-key singing and piano plunking skills at the exact same moment because I HAD TO SING!

So, in other words, another thing that probably didn't help was the fact I was too ambitious because I couldn't just keep quiet when I wanted to sing the song I was playing.  We do not have video evidence of me attempting this feat, but I assure you, it happened.

Anyway, as I said, when I was nine, we moved, and piano lessons kind of stopped.  After age twelve, I stopped almost completely.  Once, I even forgot where Middle C was.  I had to go and literally count how many white keys there were and then go back and count along half that many to find Middle C.  Literally, you want to talk about people who stink at music, and I will volunteer.  Basically, my musical knowledge goes something like this:
"List all the classical composers you know."
"Beethoven, Bach, Handel, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Schubert, Liszt, Tchaikovsky, and...about half these guys are Romantic or Neoclassical, aren't they?  I KNEW IT!  Why can't I keep my composers straight?"

Look, it's a bunch of guys with funny hair!

Ahem, anyway, let's just say I have good reasons for quitting piano playing.  Trust me, the world is a better place for it.

Also, "glockenspiel" totally sounds like it should be some sort of German food and not an instrument that I don't even know what it looks like. *Googles

Wait, why isn't this a xylophone?  HELP ME!