Don’t ask what’s up with me and wonderful piano playing…I don’t know!

Well, on second thought, maybe I do know…It’s my mother’s fault.

Mom instilled in me a sense(ability) of music. “Sing Timmy Sing!” So I did! In our house, in my room, in Grandma B’s kitchen (I remember memorizing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” for that much-anticipated recital), at school, in church, and now mostly in my truck during the morning and afternoon commute…so what if you’re off-key a bit when in the confines of your bubba-truck, right? You’ve heard the adage: “he can’t carry a tune in a handbag”? (me pointing at myself now).

And so when I started to sing, Mom also introduced me to piano lessons. I now wonder if she thought that playing the piano would help with my pitch issues…hmmm. Maybe she thought the sound would muffle the voice…yeeahhh. Oh that Mom of mine was a clever lady!

And so began several months of private piano lessons.

I remember growing up having that converted player-piano-to-normal-piano in the basement (and it’s still there I might add). I would pound out my weekly assignment mercilessly – oh my poor parents and brothers. I must have been really bad because Mom would come downstairs and scoot me over on the bench. And then she would play…beautifully (especially for an impressionable kid at my age). I’m sure of it now: she was there to give relief to the insidious tunes radiated through the entire house…those being pounded out by yours truly on an instrument of great volume potential. Mom was not an accomplished piano player, but she was a whole, W-H-O-L-E lot better than me.

And occasionally, in the evenings Grandma B would stop by our house when I just so happened to be practicing. She would listen (suffer) for a while, then down the steps she would come…scoot me over on the bench…and she too would then begin to play…beautifully. She only knew a handful of songs by heart, or at least that was all she would play for me. Funny, they were always church-songs she would play for me…perhaps she was musically praying for a speedy, piano-playing improvement in my abilities. Grandma was not an accomplished piano player, but she was a whole, W-H-O-L-E lot better than me.

In middle school, then high school, other activities occupied much of my time. With all the sports played and girls teased, little time was left to practice a piano. Instead, I opted for a capella choir elective – a misnomer as we had a student piano accompanist in that class. I was always in awe when my friend Ivan would sit down at the piano in the choir room, take a glance at the sheet music, look up at our instructor (Mr. Dolezal), and begin to play with an ever-so-slight sway in his body movement and a grin on his face. I hope Ivan still plays – he made a lasting impression on me. His talent to make a big wooden box of strings sound so “grand”…and with so little effort (so it seemed) was impressive.

The pattern of learning to play continued with my kids. I brought a full-sized keys keyboard and when they were in grade school, all three of us enrolled in private lessons. I enjoyed them…FD and FS, not so much. It was a brief two months of simple chords, very few songs.

Then, once I enrolled in night class at UNT. There’s just something odd about playing an electric keyboard with headphones on. I understand the “why” in doing that in a class of 20 bad piano players…I don’t like the “have to”. I would much rather be traditional in my playing, maybe thinking Mom and Grandma are looking down on my playing and still want to scoot me over on the bench.

So now it is that my iPhone has multiple artists that do nothing more than play the keyboard. It all makes sense now…Billy Joel – The Piano Man – is my all time favorite musician. I enjoy his songwriting and voice, but not as much as I do his piano playing. Other piano guys I have on my iPhone – heck I even have a “T-Piano” playlist – include Jon Schmidt, Brandon Musser, and Rosie Alexander (the LC UMC church pianist). I even have some classical piano playing tunes whenever I’m in the mood for creative thought (that doesn’t get a whole lot of play time)….

I’m now “following” these “piano guys” on YouTube and Facebook. Jon Schmidt is in this mix. They all are extremely talented and I long for the day when I get to play like them (I guess I’ve got to pick up the playing/practicing bit again first, huh?).

Enjoy these guys while I go dig out some sheet music and roll my grandma-in-law’s piano in from the garage. This song is just in time for and might be preemptive to Friday’s final Harry Potter movie release (yeah, I’ll probably be in line with the 10 year kids dressed as wand-totting wizard/witch-wanna-be’s at the midnight show)…whatever the case, it’s still good tickling these guys do!

Wonder if Ivan still plays….