Piano Dreams

No, I don't want a new piano. Now that I've finally gotten it tuned, I'm perfectly happy with the one I have. What I do want is the skill to play it.

I can read music, and I know which notes on the paper belong to which keys on the piano, but my brain doesn't move quickly enough when matching the two and sending its messages to my fingers. Worse, with age and lack of exercise, my fingers have lost what little dexterity they had.

When I was growing up, my mother gave my brothers and me piano lessons. Unfortunately, there were two problems. First, Mama's teaching job kept her busy during the school year, so we only received lessons in the summer. And with my aversion to practicing, my progress was always two steps forward, one step back. (Or, more accurately, two baby steps forward, one giant step back.)

The second problem was that I had no one to impress. My mother was, after all, my mother, and she was going to love me no matter how well I played. Our church organist gave lessons, and I wonder if I would have been more motivated learning from her.

I like music and have always regretted that I slacked off when I had a chance to become an adequate pianist. I'm not talking Carnegie Hall, here, but it would be nice to sit down and play hymns correctly the first time through (or even the second or third or fourth . . .).

As a child, knowing how to play appealed to me, but practicing didn't. And although I probably had a sneaking suspicion that the first required the second, I didn't have a strong enough desire for the first to do the second. If I could have seen into the future, would it have changed things?

Probably not. I was a child, and I thought as a child.

So now that I'm an adult, I play easy pieces to please my ear and maybe to entertain people who won't recognize how simple they are. And I practice slightly harder ones when no one is around to hear my mistakes and the pauses that aren't written into the music. Oh to have my lost opportunities back.

And not to waste the ones still ahead.

Do you regret lost dreams? Leave a comment and tell me about them.