Another Humiliating Day

In my relative youth, I was at least a mediocre pianist, and actually played at Sunday services with a sweet little choir.  Then, I joined the fabulous St. James Choir, fulfilling lots of lifetime dreams, and, getting my musical fix there. That was nearly twenty years ago. My piano practice time immediately dwindled to about twenty minutes a year.  And those twenty minutes were usually a sort of torture.  This year, having retired and expecting to have more time on my hands, I decided to try to practice a bit every day as a Lenten penance.  And a penance it was.  I could not play even the simplest thing.  Soooo discouraging!  I struggled, and got so that I could schlep through a couple of easy pieces, but never with aplomb. 

And absolutely never if anyone was listening.  I could even just imagine someone listening as I played, and kaboom!  The music would go “splat!”  So I decided to make my relatives listen to a little number, just to practice having a listener. Knowing that she would still love me no matter how bad it was, my first test audience was my soon-to-be ninety year old aunt. Splat!!!!!  I could not even play two chords consistently. Utterly humiliating.  Then my daughter and granddaughter became the test audience.  This was way worse.  They could not even bring themselves to utter hypocritically polite remarks.  More like, “Hmmmm!  You are going too fast,” or, “Need to work on that a bit!”

My pal Ana recently inherited her Grandma’s piano, and she too, decided to try to resuscitate her childhood piano prowess.  We agreed to get together to compare notes and play our songs for one another.  She executed hers brilliantly.  Mine went well for one note – then – Splat! 

I was comforted by the scrumptious corn soup we made (recipe here,) but humiliated nonetheless.  

On Sunday, I invited my aunt for tea again, and made her listen to my piece.  I played it fairly well.  But I have to confess that she is stone deaf, her hearing aid was broken, and she was, in addition to that, in the bathroom.  She insisted that she heard every note and it was great!  I chose to believe her.  Sort of.

Saint Cecilia, I'm counting on you to help me out!