# My first piano lesson



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

My teacher - we'll call her Rho - is a young married woman with children and as they'd got back from a holiday trip at midnight the previous night, the family were still at the breakfast table when I got there.

Rho has a grand piano in her room, and the first thing was to check my position. I was sitting too near, so she made me put my seat back and have my right leg stretched forward a little, and my left leg tucked in. This meant that later my right hand was too near the back of the piano, almost into the black notes, so I'll have to watch that. In addition, because I'm a violinist, I was arching my wrists too much. The next thing that I discovered was that the numbering system for fingers is different. The thumb, which I don't use at all in violin playing (Rho didn't realize!) is finger number one, which means that my pinkie, which is my violin 'fourth finger', now becomes finger number 5.

Rho had unearthed an old child's primer for me, much pencilled on and with pages re-sellotaped together, unfortunately in the wrong order! It's called *John Thompson's Easiest Piano Course Part One - an easy and fun approach to learning the piano*. On the front cover, it has some brightly-coloured monsters dancing on piano keys, and similar graphics are everywhere inside too. 'Old MacDonald', for example, has a cow looking as nonplussed as an outraged Victorian lady, standing next to a red monster chewing a straw, wearing a yellow knotted hanky and an inane grin, and leaning on a spade.

Rho apologised - but explained that the Adult Primers encourage people to learn by *remembering*, whereas this one is better for teaching me to *recognise* the notes. I don't mind at all. In my English lessons with advanced students, I sometimes had to use primary school spelling aids, much to the disgust of the cooler male students; so now I have to practise what I preach! 

So I spent my first lesson playing middle C with alternate thumbs and branching out with fingers one and two on each hand, going through rhythm exercises and an easy tune that sounded like bell chimes. And do you know what? It was very tiring! My brain kept trying to interpret bass clef as if it were treble and that was a big effort, like trying to wade through mud with my wellies being dragged off by the suction.

We finished up by my telling her about how I'd come to part with my exam violin teacher - I wanted her to understand that I need to be able to talk things over with my teacher. But I also knew I couldn't manage another ten minutes of the exercises!

For my homework, Rho asked me to play whatever I wanted from the book, but not to practise them until they're perfect, or I'd be memorising them instead of learning to read the notes. Also to think about my hand and finger position.

I have asked John ('Taggart') to give me fifteen minutes every day to check that I'm getting things right and help me familiarise myself with the notes; and I hope to do another fifteen minutes on my own.

That's all I can manage, because I still hope to do between one and two hours fiddle practice; it's been less since John came out of hospital, because I have a lot to do now, being the main driver and lifter while John's abdominal muscles knit up; and also I have to do all the driving etc for my mother, who lives alone in a bungalow nearby and is in good physical health for nearly ninety-four, but sadly, has dementia which seems to be getting worse lately, with all the break in routine.

What I take away from this first lesson is the importance of 'letting things come' rather than striving too much, as I tend to do with the violin. It's important for an adult learner to be their own learning facilitator and to know how their own mind works. I am slow at picking things up at this end of my life - but once I have picked them up, I have them securely.

As the Chinese Proverb puts it, 'Know yourself - know your opponent; in a hundred battles, win a hundred victories.'


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

When I came back to piano, three years ago, I already had quite a bit of experience. So the main thing was to improve my technique.

The next stage (eventually) will be to master the staves. Looking back into the dim and distant past, I can remember (just) - All Cows Eat Grass and Good Boys Deserve Favour Always. It obviously worked because I have little trouble with sight reading unless you have lots of lines. It's surprising to remember just how much is involved in playing the piano.


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