Scaling the Scales

It occured to me this week, as I pulled out the Christmas carol book, that I've had over a year of piano lessons now. I love it because I feel that I'm so much better than I was when I started, and yet its kind of depressing - over a year, really? Shouldn't I be a virtuoso by now? Just kidding, I'm pretty happy.

I've been dabbling in piano since my first Year 7 music lesson, fourteen (!) years ago. Since then I've had one overruling musical goal: to teach Bethany Heart and Soul so we can play a duet. In those fourteen years she has managed to stumble her way halfway through the melody before before succumbing to a mash of notes.

This week, in a fit of boredom, Bethany rolled up to the piano in Grandma's wheelchair (I did mention she was bored, right?) to actually sit through an hour-long music lesson. We went over the notes and how to read music, finger placement, key/note arrangement, musical notation. She worked her way through several pages of the Adult Beginner book. By the end she was basically sight reading - slowly but surely.

So can she now play Heart and Soul? ... sort of.