LJI S11 wk 4 Impossible
"Okay, okay, settle down! unmowngrass, and everyone else who isn't actually in the orchestra, you need to leave because we've now only got 20 minutes for this rehearsal before the bell rings. Band, I hope you all warmed up whilst you were eating your sandwiches! And... 1-2-3-4 --"
My left hand fumbles, ring finger trying to make the different notes. Is F the one above Middle C, or is that G? I think it's the one above. Middle C - F - D - A - E# going up. Middle C - G - Bb - back to E# - going down. Maybe. I think. I don't know what these notes sound like, I only know them by their sequence.
There was a lot of talent in that room. Probably why we/they were allowed to get away with so much messing about, too. So far as memory serves, students needed a Grade 3 in any instrument in order to take music as a specialist subject -- I think this is maybe playing Three Blind Mice?; Grade 4 and above is the level at which students are expected to sight-read; Grade 8 is the highest Grade available. No-one in my high school orchestra had less than a Grade 6, usually in at least two instruments. One of them to this day is a legitimate professional concert pianist.
My piano app says, Play one octave below Middle C. This is not a key that I have. I play Middle C itself with a huge amount of oomph, and force the app to recognise it. It works, just about. The same cannot be said for any of the other bass notes, so I end up repeating the same section over and over and over and over, until I realised that I'm not going to be able to progress and unlock many of the songs. Which rather defeats the point of paying quite a lot of money -- turned out to be one large annual payment, and not a promise to pay the much smaller monthly amount for a full year without cancelling -- in order to get the piano app in the first place!
A coal-miner's strike a year or two before I was born (late in the academic year) led to a glut of students my age. Maybe half as many again as the teachers were used to; the orchestra reflected that, and most of the rest were their siblings. We were all in the same classes academically, in the upper echelons; as much as we could get away with gossiping in class, we bonded and were friends. But music was the thing that connected everybody outside of class. The excuse they had for going round to each others' houses, to practice. But then, to hang out. Them, and not me.
Three years ago when I worked behind the bar, the Advanced division of the Accordion Club used to meet on the premises on Tuesdays. Well, they still do. On my breaks I would sneak into the rehearsal to listen to them. So beautiful, all twenty of them playing in harmony. Made me want to waltz around the room. And they spoke to me and drew me in to the beginner's rehearsal; Mondays, different place. Instrument hired from them.
Such was the tale of my adolescence. I didn't play an instrument, so no matter how many lunches I got away with eating in the music room, I was never actually one of the cool kids, and therefore sooner or later, I always had to leave the rehearsals. And never got invited to socialise with everyone else out of hours either.
Usually, people who learn the accordion are already fluent in the piano, so they only need to learn the bass keys (arranged by order of the most popular chords, working out from Middle C), and how to operate the bellows. I could not play the piano; I could only just, barely, very slowly, read the music, and because I'm a bit dyslexic, all the notes tended to jump up and down anyway. But according to both the leader of the Accordion CLub, and the memory of my school music teacher and orchestral peers, actually writing the names of the letters down on the music, is "cheating". Writing down the number of the finger used to play the note is considered a bad a idea too, but it's the numbers that stuck in my mind associated with each key. That's why I can't remember the names of the notes.
I did play the guitar, briefly. My Dad had a guitar for his 40th birthday, because he had really wanted one when he was twelve, and didn't get it. So when I was 12... ish... I wanted one too. Even though I had never wanted to play it before, and I didn't realise how much it would hurt my (delicate) fingers, and it's not that useful to play alongside a clarinet or a trumpet either. And I did have a few lunchtime lessons, from a completely different teacher, by myself, in, of all places, the cupboard. Yes, quite literally, in the cupboard known as the Music Storeroom, just about enough room for our two chairs. Because one of the music classrooms was obviously occupied with the orchestra rehearsals, and when the other one wasn't locked, people were using the piano to practise for their personal goals and exams. Playing violin music, because nobody had anything prepared for the guitar.
Much as I loved listening to the accordion music, and I did -- do --, at the beginning stage it's very about being able to say that I have mastered the skill. No joy in the process itself, only in the accomplishing. Which is why I didn't practice very much. So even the beginner's group rushed well ahead of me, and then I joined the beginner's group again with the next group of complete newbies -- who could play the piano -- and then they got ahead of me again. I carried on hiring the instrument the second time, though. Even though it sat in it's box for many months. I knew eventually I'd get it out again, when I could face it, when I could do it at my pace, and that day was a few weeks ago.
I should have asked the school to give me piano lessons. That's so obvious to me in retrospect. I asked my friends to teach me, from time to time, and of course there were the regular music classes I took before we needed to choose specialist subjects. I never asked a teacher. Our family was never going to be able to afford a piano anyway -- although of course the school had a few. The piano can play every style of music, is common enough that one can usually be found to sit down at when needed, and is, in retrospect, an important social skill for both ice-breaking, and for instigating dances. The only advantage the guitar has is it's portability.
Dad learned to play the guitar by ear, but much like my Mum's side of the family, I couldn't figure it out that way, I had to do it by sequence, and music was just not considered important in her house. She hardly ever listened to the radio, and even then, her favourites are songs she can sing along to. Nothing about understanding the way the tune is made. That's a completely different paradigm.
I can dance, and last week when I was doing duty-practice of my accordion, with my piano app, trying to play the notes that didn't exist, a phrase from dancing crossed my mind. "WAIT for the music. Don't rush." And suddenly I could see it in a different light. I understood the musicality. I'd been using the wrong part of my brain. Or rather, trying to play from my brain, and not from my soul. But now I got it, it had entered me. Hallelujah!
And I was crying. I played my one song that I had unlocked, over and over for an hour and a half, and I cried, and cried. If only they could see me now, eh? And I thought to myself,
"I'd give everything I have to go back and get this when I was fourteen. To get my piano lessons, and show them that I can join in. The accordion can wait, I don't need to pick that up any sooner than I did, but to have music have been a part of me then, like I now know it was for my friends... I'd give everything."
My left hand fumbles, ring finger trying to make the different notes. Is F the one above Middle C, or is that G? I think it's the one above. Middle C - F - D - A - E# going up. Middle C - G - Bb - back to E# - going down. Maybe. I think. I don't know what these notes sound like, I only know them by their sequence.
There was a lot of talent in that room. Probably why we/they were allowed to get away with so much messing about, too. So far as memory serves, students needed a Grade 3 in any instrument in order to take music as a specialist subject -- I think this is maybe playing Three Blind Mice?; Grade 4 and above is the level at which students are expected to sight-read; Grade 8 is the highest Grade available. No-one in my high school orchestra had less than a Grade 6, usually in at least two instruments. One of them to this day is a legitimate professional concert pianist.
My piano app says, Play one octave below Middle C. This is not a key that I have. I play Middle C itself with a huge amount of oomph, and force the app to recognise it. It works, just about. The same cannot be said for any of the other bass notes, so I end up repeating the same section over and over and over and over, until I realised that I'm not going to be able to progress and unlock many of the songs. Which rather defeats the point of paying quite a lot of money -- turned out to be one large annual payment, and not a promise to pay the much smaller monthly amount for a full year without cancelling -- in order to get the piano app in the first place!
A coal-miner's strike a year or two before I was born (late in the academic year) led to a glut of students my age. Maybe half as many again as the teachers were used to; the orchestra reflected that, and most of the rest were their siblings. We were all in the same classes academically, in the upper echelons; as much as we could get away with gossiping in class, we bonded and were friends. But music was the thing that connected everybody outside of class. The excuse they had for going round to each others' houses, to practice. But then, to hang out. Them, and not me.
Three years ago when I worked behind the bar, the Advanced division of the Accordion Club used to meet on the premises on Tuesdays. Well, they still do. On my breaks I would sneak into the rehearsal to listen to them. So beautiful, all twenty of them playing in harmony. Made me want to waltz around the room. And they spoke to me and drew me in to the beginner's rehearsal; Mondays, different place. Instrument hired from them.
Such was the tale of my adolescence. I didn't play an instrument, so no matter how many lunches I got away with eating in the music room, I was never actually one of the cool kids, and therefore sooner or later, I always had to leave the rehearsals. And never got invited to socialise with everyone else out of hours either.
Usually, people who learn the accordion are already fluent in the piano, so they only need to learn the bass keys (arranged by order of the most popular chords, working out from Middle C), and how to operate the bellows. I could not play the piano; I could only just, barely, very slowly, read the music, and because I'm a bit dyslexic, all the notes tended to jump up and down anyway. But according to both the leader of the Accordion CLub, and the memory of my school music teacher and orchestral peers, actually writing the names of the letters down on the music, is "cheating". Writing down the number of the finger used to play the note is considered a bad a idea too, but it's the numbers that stuck in my mind associated with each key. That's why I can't remember the names of the notes.
I did play the guitar, briefly. My Dad had a guitar for his 40th birthday, because he had really wanted one when he was twelve, and didn't get it. So when I was 12... ish... I wanted one too. Even though I had never wanted to play it before, and I didn't realise how much it would hurt my (delicate) fingers, and it's not that useful to play alongside a clarinet or a trumpet either. And I did have a few lunchtime lessons, from a completely different teacher, by myself, in, of all places, the cupboard. Yes, quite literally, in the cupboard known as the Music Storeroom, just about enough room for our two chairs. Because one of the music classrooms was obviously occupied with the orchestra rehearsals, and when the other one wasn't locked, people were using the piano to practise for their personal goals and exams. Playing violin music, because nobody had anything prepared for the guitar.
Much as I loved listening to the accordion music, and I did -- do --, at the beginning stage it's very about being able to say that I have mastered the skill. No joy in the process itself, only in the accomplishing. Which is why I didn't practice very much. So even the beginner's group rushed well ahead of me, and then I joined the beginner's group again with the next group of complete newbies -- who could play the piano -- and then they got ahead of me again. I carried on hiring the instrument the second time, though. Even though it sat in it's box for many months. I knew eventually I'd get it out again, when I could face it, when I could do it at my pace, and that day was a few weeks ago.
I should have asked the school to give me piano lessons. That's so obvious to me in retrospect. I asked my friends to teach me, from time to time, and of course there were the regular music classes I took before we needed to choose specialist subjects. I never asked a teacher. Our family was never going to be able to afford a piano anyway -- although of course the school had a few. The piano can play every style of music, is common enough that one can usually be found to sit down at when needed, and is, in retrospect, an important social skill for both ice-breaking, and for instigating dances. The only advantage the guitar has is it's portability.
Dad learned to play the guitar by ear, but much like my Mum's side of the family, I couldn't figure it out that way, I had to do it by sequence, and music was just not considered important in her house. She hardly ever listened to the radio, and even then, her favourites are songs she can sing along to. Nothing about understanding the way the tune is made. That's a completely different paradigm.
I can dance, and last week when I was doing duty-practice of my accordion, with my piano app, trying to play the notes that didn't exist, a phrase from dancing crossed my mind. "WAIT for the music. Don't rush." And suddenly I could see it in a different light. I understood the musicality. I'd been using the wrong part of my brain. Or rather, trying to play from my brain, and not from my soul. But now I got it, it had entered me. Hallelujah!
And I was crying. I played my one song that I had unlocked, over and over for an hour and a half, and I cried, and cried. If only they could see me now, eh? And I thought to myself,
"I'd give everything I have to go back and get this when I was fourteen. To get my piano lessons, and show them that I can join in. The accordion can wait, I don't need to pick that up any sooner than I did, but to have music have been a part of me then, like I now know it was for my friends... I'd give everything."