Return of the Music

I’ll never forget the last time I played the piano on stage. I was ten-year’s-old and my piano teacher’s suspected star pupil. But sitting up there on the podium at Forum North, I let my attention drift from the song I knew so well and, instead, briefly focused on everyone’s eyes boring into my back, waiting to hear what I did. I panicked.

My fingers tripped over themselves and the tricky song which I’d pulled off flawlessly countless times, slid into a downward slide. Mortified and bitterly disappointed with myself, I stood up, faced the audience and curtseyed before returning to my pew. I never went on stage again.

Well not playing the piano. Put me in a role where I’ve assumed another character, as the choreographer of a musical show once said after a rehearsal scene where all 40 cast members were on stage: “Who was the girl in the orange wig because she held the stage and I just couldn’t take my eyes off her?!”

That was me dressed as Daphne from Scooby Doo. It would seem I had become one of those total and utter show-offs on stage, something I’m not in real life. I also had no qualms dancing on stage during my ten years of ballet and confidently danced my way across that same stage many a time.

But back to the piano. After that atrocity, I stuck it out another few months but my interest was waning. Mum said she wasn’t going to pay the exorbitant amounts of money for the lessons anymore if I wasn’t interested. I said I was too scared to tell my sweet, gentle elderly but overenthusiastic teacher, who hadn’t mentioned my on stage faux pas and still held high hopes for me.

This went on another few months until finally mum caved and was the one to tell her. She cried. Not mum, the piano teacher. It was dreadful.

Walking back up the drive to the car mum, ashen-faced, said to me: “Gosh, I can see why you didn’t want to tell her – I had no idea.”

I felt bad for years about letting my piano teacher down. But I felt free as well. And I had enough knowledge and songs to have a few party tricks up my sleeve and belt out tunes to entertain friends and family for years.

I didn’t realise what a great skill it is to be able to sit down at a piano and play. Until I couldn’t.

It was last year and we were at Paihia where the outdoor village piano attracted my attention. I took my pew, placed my hands on the keys … and froze. But this time it wasn’t from stage fright. My mind was blank. After all these years, my musical knowledge had gone.

I resorted to the one song I could remember – a simple one but it sounded impressive to the kids, and that has been my go-to ever since.

Last week we bought a new piano and I’ve been distracting myself from my lack of recall by teaching the twins the basics. It’s been satisfying for both them and me as they’ve learnt their scales and then their first song. It’s the upper octave version of my lower scale go-to song so now we can play a duet.

The trouble is we’re now all sick of it. So, I’ve enlisted mum to dig out my years of old sheet music and I am going to start back at the beginning.

Soon our house will be filled with music. But I’m thinking if I put on any performances in future, I might don a wig and assume an alias, Elton John-style.