The Piano Blues

As I'm sitting here typing this I'm listening to my son, McKay (who is 16) play a beautiful piece on the piano--a medley of "Joseph Smith's First Prayer" and "Praise to the Man."  I am not gonna lie--it makes me proud.  Proud and glad that we made our kids take piano lessons for all those years.

Piano lessons are interesting.  I find that it follows a cycle much like this:

Phase 1, aka, "The Honeymoon Stage":  this begins around the age of 8 when the child is jumping up and down for joy at the prospect of taking lessons.  He eagerly does his theory first thing and asks when he can practice the piano and then proceeds to play the week's worth of songs in one day.  Mom and Dad look on, dreaming of their future concert pianist and patting themselves on the back for providing this opportunity.  

Phase 2, aka, "Two Weeks Later":  Reality sets in.  Practice is hard.  And it takes away from valuable nintendo playing time.  At this point Mom and Dad (but let's face it, it's really Mom) must devise ways to keep the pianist engaged.  Sticker charts, pennies lined up on the piano, candy treats, cold hard cash--we will stop at nothing because, dang it, we don't want our off spring growing up and saying that they wished their mom had made them practice the piano--seriously there are more than one of you reading this that said that to your mom, correct?

Phase 3, "The Torture Years":  Yep--it's torture.  For both the child and yourself.  And it will last--for a loooooooooooong time.  You will listen to endless scales--played at lightening speed so that they can get through them quickly and you will go crazy in the process.  Your child will spend hours sitting/laying on the bench whining that they don't knoooooooooooooow what note that it is and it's tooooooooooooooo hard.  There will be tears.  Lots of them.  And a few from your child as well.  There will be the endless battle to find their piano books: "I put them right here and SOMEBODY took them"  (only to have Mom find them exactly where they should be).  There will be frantic car rides to lessons when your pianist discovers he forgot to do his theory--again--and you are trying to help him transpose a song while navigating traffic which quite frankly probably ranks right up there with driving and texting as far as safety goes.  On good weeks your child will practice every day.  And then you find out that there are never good weeks and instead you're batting .500.  If you're lucky.  You will be forced to attend hour long recitals when all you really want to hear is the 2 minutes your kid plays.  And it sounds exactly like it does at home, so why are you here?  The child will curse your name, proclaim the fact that they have to practice "unfair" and they will tell you that they will NEVER make their kids take piano lessons.  And you will pay hundreds--no thousands of dollars--for all that.  

But finally...

Phase 4, "The Reward":  one day you will be rewarded for all that grief with your child playing a beautiful piano medley not because you made them, but because they want to.  Your house will be filled with lovely music and you realize it's been a long time since you were going mad listening to the 654th rendition of "Chop Sticks."  And it's worth it.  It really is.