Piano Practice

After a series of long-running fights with my then fiancé (“It’s too big for the room, it’s too expensive, why do you always require me to prove my loyalty by spending inordinate sums on you?”) and haggling with family to “pool” birthday and Christmas funds coming my way, my Yamaha CLP-400 arrived. I asked my two-year-old nephew for a pair of Austrian Audio cans in order to keep the peace and, fully understanding the nature of my predicament, he obliged.

I fancied myself as a late-blooming Yuja Wang and bought Wiener Urtext Edition Rachmaninov and Peters Edition Schumann and Liszt, but soon contented myself with scales (major and minor, harmonic and melodic) and Hanon finger exercises. Foolishly, I promised Christmas Carols for my in-laws-elect (though I refused specific requests) and after several large gins, I even recorded some. But now it is May and they remain on my iPhone, uncirculated.

I’m trying Bach at the moment, having selected at random his third English Suite, and I’m taking things slow, slow, s-l-o-w: a bar at a time, building up the muscle memory, a low-key project just for me. I don’t practise everyday, but when I do, I think a lot of my (now late) piano teacher, who took me on as an eight-year-old little boy (we played Jelly on the Plate, Dinah in the Kitchen and she rewarded my enthusiasm with fun-looking stickers and stars). She turned me into an ABRSM Grade 7 young man, at which point I ditched her for a more prestigious tutor whom I disliked, and then I ditched the piano entirely.

Marion Watson, forgive me.