Finally the Big Day Came !

Finally, the big day came!  I was to start piano lessons!  It was a Saturday morning and my music teacher was coming to my home at 9:00 sharp.  I was up at the crack of dawn “practicing” my piano.  Looking out the window, I saw her drive up.   She was a kindly, older lady who always wore a hat and glasses.  She was very soft spoken but when she sat down at my piano and began to play, she was everything but soft!  Oh, if I could only play like that……….someday, I told myself………someday.  When she left that day, I had my first real honest-to-goodness piano book and, not only that, but I had a note speller book; the John W. Schaum purple piano book. Was I ever proud! I told myself right then that someday, I would be the best pianist in the world……they would see. My John W. Schaum piano book and red note speller book and I were going far!

As I got older, I was still practicing my piano although I had a different teacher.  Our preacher’s wife gave lessons in her home behind our church, which was the big red brick church down the street from the post office, and my first piano teacher thought I was advanced enough to graduate to our preacher’s wife’s lessons.  So, every week after school, I went to her home.  By this time, I had graduated to the violet book and I had finished several spellers. I even acquired a polka book and the book of sacred songs. I enjoyed playing the piano but practicing became a drudge.  I enjoyed making up my own songs and playing by ear. My piano teacher let me know that reading music and playing by ear didn’t mix well so it was a constant battle for me to practice.  I would much rather play the latest song I had heard on the radio.

My piano was a great companion as I was growing up. I used what those piano teachers had taught me, not only for my own enjoyment, but I also was church pianist and organist at one time at the big red brick church down the street from the post office. We have had a Wurlitzer Fun Maker organ for nearly forty years and I play it for my enjoyment. And also a standard sized electric piano that is such fun to play. However, playing any musical instrument is the same; if you don’t play every day and continue to push yourself, you tend to lose some of the ability you had.

Grandson # 1 inherited mine and his granddad’s love of music. He took piano lessons also when he was about seven years old.  He liked to play by ear also but did very well following the notes in his book. Next was the harmonica.  My daddy, his great-granddad, loved to play the harmonica. In fact, Grandson # 1 inherited one of his great-granddad’s harmonicas. I just knew that someday he would be a famous harmonica player………..probably on the Grand Ole Opry.

Grandson # 2 followed in his older brother’s footsteps and is taking piano lessons now.  He, too, loves to play by ear and write his own songs. But, he has a talent and I expect him to continue and become prolific in his playing.  Whatever my children and grandchildren do with their musical talent, I want them to enjoy it; that’s the main thing.

Are you encouraging your children to use the talents God has given them?  Do you praise them for the efforts they make when they find the things that really interest them? Things they excel in? Children look for encouragement; they look for someone who appreciates what they do.  If they don't find that in you, they will find it somewhere else.

There are more stories about music in our family and I hope you aren’t too bored if I continue to share them.

“The Lord will save me, and we will sing with stringed instruments all the days of our lives

    in the temple of the Lord.” Isaiah 38:20 NIV