So I Try to Play the Piano

I took piano lessons from first grade up till it just fizzled out sometime during my junior year of high school.  My late piano teacher was also my Bible Quizzing coach (and pastor's wife) and she said I could be forgiven for letting piano slide since I was memorizing so many Bible verses.

So I had a rather prolonged break from piano, lasting from around 1994 till the summer of 2016, when I bought Dawson a keyboard so he could start his own lessons.  The first song of which I downloaded the sheet music was "Sur le fil" from the "Amelie" soundtrack, which might be the most amazing soundtrack in the known world.  Enjoy.  As a side note, one of my favorite things to do on this planet is to wander through the Northern arrondissements of Paris where "Amelie" was filmed while listening to the soundtrack, highlighted by a walk through the energetic and colorful  Gare du nord.  Paris, tu me manque, but I digress...

In case you're wondering... sitting down at a keyboard again, after 22 years, is a bit more complicated than remembering how to ride a bike.  I had to Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge and FACE for awhile, but it did eventually come back to me.  Now, it's one of the great pleasures in my life, challenging yet rewarding, difficult yet therapeutic.  Here are a few of the songs I've managed to record, along with some explanations and apologies.  It took me a couple of months to become even partly proficient at that "you've gotta be kidding me, that's fast" section toward the end.





The videos aren't quite embedding correctly, so I'll share the actual links, too.
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This next video really shows the top end, as well as the limits, of my piano playing ability.  I've never been one who can play a piece perfectly.  I guess I just lack the finger dexterity.  90% proficiency is usually the best I can manage.  While I simply can't avoid mistakes, I'm at least creative in finding new ones to make each time I play a song, the exact same song, mind you.  I also get a bit nervous playing for a camera, which is evident in this video.  I'm copying in some advice from a good friend who is both a concert pianist and a travelling ninja.  I've had moments in which I've played with the joyful abandon Denise describes below, but certainly never in front of a camera.

 "...Another thing I'd say is to just play, worry less about making mistakes :) Hard to do I know.  But sometimes if you just go with it, amazing things will happen. Remember, Robert Schumann said "When you play, never mind who listens to you." Beethoven said "to play a wrong note is insignificant. To play without passion is inexcusable." Of course, another interpretation is that "to play a wrong timidly is a mistake. To play a wrong note with authority is an interpretation." :) Don't remember who said that but I like it."




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"And now for something completely different."  Pop music

It's amazing how much more difficult it is to play pop music than classical music.

I'm slightly hesitant to share this one for several reasons.  First of all, it's not great, not at all.  I was able to get a few parts down but I could never get the timing right in certain sections, particularly on the bridge.  I eventually got tired of working on it, though and wanted to get it recorded so I could move on, which I did, actually throwing the sheet music in the recycling and washing my hands of the song.
Which leads to the other reason this song isn't great to share, it was meant to be a birthday present but it never got delivered to the intended recipient.  Just as an interaction with that Intended Recipient prompted me to do some writing on this blog, another brief interaction with said Intended Recipient prompted me to work on this song.  It's as if some emotions were working themselves from my heart, through my arms, out my fingers and eventually into the previously mentioned recycling bin.
I made the video, though, so I might as well share it.




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The good thing about the above video is that the little bit of singing I actually do in the video resides much more in my vocal sweet spot than the next video I'm going to share.  I'm going to share it anyway, though as it's one of my all-time favorite songs, even if it pushes (let's be honest, it exceeds) my vocal range.

The particular arrangement I'm going to play comes from the musical Moulin Rouge but the actual song predates that musical by several decades.  I don't know of any other song that captures the aching beauty one experiences while wandering Montmartre late at night.  Or maybe in a broader sense, it captures the maddening pleasure of a city that (to paraphrase another old French songwriter) is like a lover who tantalizes you while you're in her presence but forgets your face as soon as you leave.  But there I go again, missing Paris...

Maybe it's my voice cracking or the lack of an accordion but my playing of this song won't illicit anything near to the depth of feeling brought out by the original.  Nonetheless, I still greatly enjoyed learning this song as it's the first song I've been able to both play and sing. 

Also, I apologize if my introducing the song in French comes off as pretentious (is it ever possible to speak French and not come off as pretentious?), but I couldn't resist.



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Finally, please allow me to be a braggy dad for a minute.  My son is quite the piano player, when I can actually get him to practice.  He has a musical ear that I simply don't have.  Not only can he play a song by ear after just a few tries, he even composes his own short songs.  Of course, that's no surprise, as his biological uncle is a recording artist and his biological grandma is herself a piano teacher.  Dawson fights me on piano but he's too talented for me to let him quit when he's this young.  As the parents of my above mentioned concert pianist friend would tell her as a child, "no adult regrets being made to learn piano as a child."



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