Music

When my aunt needed my help to bring my cousin to piano class, I thought, hey, how difficult can that be? After all, I've had plenty of practice as the family chauffeur ever since I got my license. It would be a simple matter of fetching her to class, and then bringing her home.

Or so I thought.

It turned out that parents (or in my case, cousin) had to accompany their children (cousin) through the course of the lesson. My aunt said that the idea was to help the young ones along with their practice, to guide them should they need it. Me, help? Man, ask me about scales and I'll point to a fish. But I had already agreed, so off I went.

Sitting in piano class again after so many years brought back so many memories. I remember being bundled off to piano class when I was younger, in an effort to 'equip me with a life-long passion for music'. My piano teacher was optimistic about me at first, saying she could see potential where I knew there was none. My parents mercifully stopped the lessons when they found my teacher, after class one day, sobbing and trying to eat her scores.

I do regret, of course. As things turned out I did acquire a passion for music, yet I remain as musically-illiterate as the day I looked at my first score sheet and thought, hey, what cute tadpoles these are. Therefore I am restricted to always having to nod like mad and pretend I know what is happening when friends talk about Chopping or Baytoeven, or go green with envy when others just seem to elicit the sweetest tunes effortlessly from pianos and guitars and whatnot.

When it's my turn to have children, I would have had the advantage of understanding child psychology though. I will buy a grand piano, store it in a secret room with a 'Do Not Enter' sign on the door, and tell my kids never to enter. Freak, I'll even rig it to dispense sweets every time a piece is successfully rendered. That way, my kids would naturally rebel and practice secretly, and grow up with the skills I wish I had.

If my kids turn out to be really gifted musically they might end up diabetics, but oh well. You can't have everything.