As a kid my mom forced me to take piano lessons. Every week I dreaded the day the piano teacher would come for my lesson. I remember her beat up old car pulling up to the curb, her hair pulled back into a barrette. I would hunker down hoping my mom would, you know, let me skip this week's lesson.
I'd sit down at the piano and start sweating. I hadn't practiced and I was so scared the piano teacher would be upset about it. She'd listen to me struggle through a song, one wrong note after the next. When she finally got sick of it she'd curl her lips under and bite her mechanical pencil between them while she played the song for me so I could hear how it was supposed to sound.
Then she'd have me try again. And again. And usually one more time. Probably because she knew this was the only practicing I'd do all week.
She'd flip her thick hair back behind her shoulder and write more notes in my spiral notebook for what I was supposed to do and which songs to practice for the upcoming week. She'd tell me to trim my nails, and then she'd leave.
I'm not exactly sure when I was finally able to quit. It was at least a few years I was forced to play. Then after a few years of a break there was a new teacher and the lessons started again. I quit for good sometime at the beginning of junior high. I was so happy to finally be done with piano lessons!
I wish I had been forced to stick with it. Actually, I wish I had had the motivation myself to want to be good at it, to want to develop a talent. I wish I had been less consumed with trying to be "cool" and watching too much TV that I would have developed an interest in the piano.
Piano players are graceful, they're even said to handle stress and criticism better. Playing the piano teaches self-discipline. It gives kids an outlet as well as a hobby to keep them out of trouble.
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