How we can learn to inspire our children

[snoop1130]

How we can learn to inspire our children

by Peter Hogan

 

 

It would be wrong to say that I hated my piano lessons. At the age of 14 I cared so little that I didn’t put in the energy to hate them. My parents had told me that learning the piano would be good for me, whatever that meant. It certainly wasn’t true by any definition that I believed of good things as a confused and needy teenage boy. I went to the lessons, played the scales and arpeggios, prepared for the exams, scraped passes and had more classes. Certificates and old music piled up in the piano stool and on it went. It seemed to make my parents happy and as my brother and sisters were all older and had passed more exams than me these family pull and push factors kept me going. But it didn’t make me like it. I attended the lessons religiously and with the same sacred fervour one sees in an infant being dragged screaming into church. Things were made even worse by the fact that I had piano lessons after school, after sport and the cold, dark evenings were the worst of all. I would go to my piano teacher’s house with bruises and cut knuckles after two hours of hockey training with an attitude not at all in harmony with the nuances of music and the intricacies of keyboard techniques.

 

One evening, sucking my knuckles to staunch the bloody grazes and warming my fingers I was in a foul mood. Throwing my sports bag in the corner of the room I sat slumped in front of the piano dreading the arrival of my teacher. I was cold, the house was cold and I hadn’t practiced all week so I was in for a scolding. I would stumble over the keys, she would write in my notebook in capitals if I had played badly and there were always a lot of capitals. It would be really bad but at least it would all be over in 45 minutes. When the door creaked open I was disturbed to see not her but an elderly white haired man creep around the door. His wife, my teacher, was ill and he was going to take the lesson. He told me this in the shaky, high tones of a man who I assumed, summoning all the experience of my 14 years, to be well over 100. Could things get any worse? If she was ill I had banked on the lesson being cancelled but now I was going to have to perform to a stranger. I had no idea how he would react to my terrible playing. 

 

This little old man sat next to me, asked me to play my exam pieces and I lurched along bar after bar, page after page until both hands reached the end at not exactly the same time. I stared at the keys, at the music, at the wall, anywhere but at him. There was a long pause. I am sure he was looking at the back of my head. I don’t enjoy it and I was sure he was not having a good time either. What were we both doing there? When would it end?

 

“What else are you learning to play at the moment?” he asked, after what felt like an eternity of discomfort and silent embarrassment. What else?, I thought. Why would I be playing anything else? I played what I was told to play, I didn’t practice enough, I took a verbal mauling every so often for my troubles, I sat exams and the cycle continued. How could there be anything else? I didn’t know how to answer and so sat in silence. He helped me out by asking, “Sorry, I mean what are you playing for fun?” I was completely stumped. I mumbled an answer about being busy, about not being sure what else to play and hoped that we would move on. Surely it was time to go. It wasn’t. He didn’t move on. He just said something else. 

 

“I won’t charge you for this lesson. Instead I want you to use the money to buy some music that you like. Learn to play it. Just for fun. Not for me, do it for you.” 

 

Full Story: https://expatlifeinthailand.com/education/43306/

 

-- © Copyright Expat Life in Thailand 2021-02-04

 

- Whatever you're going through, the Samaritans are here for you

- Follow Thaivisa on LINE for breaking COVID-19 updates

[1FinickyOne]

children see much more than we think - teach through example.