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Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Musings... Thank You, Piano?

The gift of music was bestowed upon me as a child for about a decade. Usually once a week for about an hour with a teacher and a half-hour-ish of practice daily. Then there were the summers where I took extra classes to learn musical theory. That was a big chunk of my childhood but I still suck at playing the piano.
This brings back memories... Bad ones.
 Looking back, it would have been nice to not have half of my weekends -- preparation and travel time -- taken up learning something I didn't really care about. I probably liked it the first few years, but most of it was a chore and I did it because someone told me to do it. Would I have done something more productive with that time? Who knows.

Learning music theory and how to play an instrument did prove to be helpful over the years though. It helped me to do quite well in high school band class where I learned to play two additional instruments. I even did a bit of musical theory tutoring because I was so far ahead of what we were learning in class. All of this even led to a fourth instrument: I learned how to play a little bit of guitar on my own. Can't say I play any of these instruments well, but I know the basics. Seeing as how I never followed through on committing to any one of them though, that probably means that music isn't something I'm passionate about -- aside from listening to it.
At least two childhood summers spent drawing these things day in and day out...
Surprisingly, some of my musical knowledge is still intact so many years since my last music lessons -- piano and high school. Key positions for the clarinet I played in high school, guitar chords, scales, key signatures, beats, etc. I can remember at least a bit from all of them. It's a shame that I don't have much use for it on a daily basis. Time to start teaching music?

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