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a musical education
Nov. 30th, 2005 12:37 am"Go practice the piano!"
I learned not to complain about being bored because too often, the response would be a reminder to weed the garden or practice the piano. So I would practice. I'd complain but I would practice. The thing is, I liked to play piano...I just didn't like to practice whatever was assigned. Scales? Finger exercises? Dry dry dry. Just as I would procrastinate on homework by reading other books for fun, I would also play other songs instead of the assigned pieces. And at the next week's piano lesson, I would try my best to sight-read my way through it. She could always tell but I got to be a pretty decent sight reader -- at least for the easier or slower pieces.
It hadn't always been that way. I'm told that when I was 5 years old, I would bang on the keys while my mom was trying to practice. So she signed me up for piano lessons so that I could at least try to bang on the right keys. I happily picked my way through those early books and still retain a fondness for the song "Bone Sweet Bone" in the green book that had a sketch of a bulldog on that page. Apparently, I would sing this song. I don't remember the words but every time I'm eating ribs and gnawing on the bones, that phrase 'Bone sweet bone' pops into my head.
I recently asked my parents why they had made me take piano lessons. My dad's response was that he felt everyone should have a chance to learn to play a musical instrument. He himself had never had that opportunity. My mom's response was that she thought it would exercise my brain. "Look at any of the kids at MIT! They all know how to play something."
And I agree that piano lessons helped me in many ways, most of them not even musical. Practicing develops patience, persistence, and discipline. I suspect that it might have helped make reading and algebra easier for me since I would've already been used to learning a system where a symbol stands for something else. When I came to fractions in math, I thought about quarter, eighth, and sixteenth notes. Later when I joined the band, I learned musical teamwork, being careful not to play over someone else's solo or getting caught up in the thrill of a crashing crescendo. The playfulness of different sections of the band calling and responding to each other made me smile. I never tired of saying some musical terms like vivace, rubato and staccato.
But playing music has brought more than brain exercise to me. To this day, though my piano skills have deteriorated somewhat, I can still while away a pleasant evening, thumbing through books of sheet music, revisiting a familiar piece here or trying out a new piece there. It gives me the same sensation as browsing through a bookstore. Tonight I played Beethoven's "Sonata Pathétique" and a few Chopin preludes and his "Funeral March". My boyfriend refers to that batch of pieces as "Music to Die By" but he enjoys listening to me play despite the dour name. And then I played some ragtime from Scott Joplin. Started with the familiar "Maple Leaf Rag" and "The Entertainer" but then started trying some of the other pieces in the book and stumbled on a few that I really liked including "Elite Syncopations" and "Antoinette".
Is there a point? Only that I feel sad whenever I hear schools are considering dropping their music programs due to budget cuts. I understand that the core parts of a public school education will be English and Math (and depending on the school, the untouchable football program) but I think it would be a great loss if kids didn't get a chance to sing and play a musical instrument at some point in their education. I count myself lucky to have had the luxury of piano lessons that give me the pleasure tonight of relaxing with music that I can play.
Now I wish I knew more about the story behind some of my favorite pieces. What was Beethoven thinking when he wrote his "Sonata Pathétique"? How do I learn more?
I learned not to complain about being bored because too often, the response would be a reminder to weed the garden or practice the piano. So I would practice. I'd complain but I would practice. The thing is, I liked to play piano...I just didn't like to practice whatever was assigned. Scales? Finger exercises? Dry dry dry. Just as I would procrastinate on homework by reading other books for fun, I would also play other songs instead of the assigned pieces. And at the next week's piano lesson, I would try my best to sight-read my way through it. She could always tell but I got to be a pretty decent sight reader -- at least for the easier or slower pieces.
It hadn't always been that way. I'm told that when I was 5 years old, I would bang on the keys while my mom was trying to practice. So she signed me up for piano lessons so that I could at least try to bang on the right keys. I happily picked my way through those early books and still retain a fondness for the song "Bone Sweet Bone" in the green book that had a sketch of a bulldog on that page. Apparently, I would sing this song. I don't remember the words but every time I'm eating ribs and gnawing on the bones, that phrase 'Bone sweet bone' pops into my head.
I recently asked my parents why they had made me take piano lessons. My dad's response was that he felt everyone should have a chance to learn to play a musical instrument. He himself had never had that opportunity. My mom's response was that she thought it would exercise my brain. "Look at any of the kids at MIT! They all know how to play something."
And I agree that piano lessons helped me in many ways, most of them not even musical. Practicing develops patience, persistence, and discipline. I suspect that it might have helped make reading and algebra easier for me since I would've already been used to learning a system where a symbol stands for something else. When I came to fractions in math, I thought about quarter, eighth, and sixteenth notes. Later when I joined the band, I learned musical teamwork, being careful not to play over someone else's solo or getting caught up in the thrill of a crashing crescendo. The playfulness of different sections of the band calling and responding to each other made me smile. I never tired of saying some musical terms like vivace, rubato and staccato.
But playing music has brought more than brain exercise to me. To this day, though my piano skills have deteriorated somewhat, I can still while away a pleasant evening, thumbing through books of sheet music, revisiting a familiar piece here or trying out a new piece there. It gives me the same sensation as browsing through a bookstore. Tonight I played Beethoven's "Sonata Pathétique" and a few Chopin preludes and his "Funeral March". My boyfriend refers to that batch of pieces as "Music to Die By" but he enjoys listening to me play despite the dour name. And then I played some ragtime from Scott Joplin. Started with the familiar "Maple Leaf Rag" and "The Entertainer" but then started trying some of the other pieces in the book and stumbled on a few that I really liked including "Elite Syncopations" and "Antoinette".
Is there a point? Only that I feel sad whenever I hear schools are considering dropping their music programs due to budget cuts. I understand that the core parts of a public school education will be English and Math (and depending on the school, the untouchable football program) but I think it would be a great loss if kids didn't get a chance to sing and play a musical instrument at some point in their education. I count myself lucky to have had the luxury of piano lessons that give me the pleasure tonight of relaxing with music that I can play.
Now I wish I knew more about the story behind some of my favorite pieces. What was Beethoven thinking when he wrote his "Sonata Pathétique"? How do I learn more?
