Piano

I’ve been learning the piano again, and it’s giving me a great deal of pleasure. I learned for a few years as a child, but gave up when it started getting difficult, and in the last five years or so I’ve periodically gone “I should learn to play again”, made enthusiastic attempts for a couple of weeks, and then gotten bored. About a year ago, when we were preparing for a couple of singthroughs at Ardgour-en-France, I volunteered to do the easy piano version accompaniment for a couple of the songs. It took a ridiculous amount of time to get these really quite simple pieces to a non-terrible standard, but it got me back into the habit of playing regularly again, and I’ve carried on ever since.

When I moved out to Northampton I had quite a lot of time to myself, so after a little while decided to treat myself to a cheap spare piano out here, and since then I’ve been playing a lot more, and recently started taking lessons again. I’m not someone who’s naturally musically talented, but it turns out that actually practicing a reasonable amount means you get better at a reasonable rate. Who knew? I’m preparing for my grade 5 now, and having a lot of fun with the pieces (not so much fun with the scales, of which there are many, but I do seem to find it easier to be disciplined about them than I did as a youngster).