Still learning

Learning as I teach. Last year with eight piano students I was able to squeeze an audience of family and friends into my living room for our end of the year recital. With the help of my amazing husband, he agreed and was willing, to move all the furniture out and replace the room with all our table chairs that we had at various places throughout our house. A tight fit, but everyone except my own children got their own chair.

This year my business grew twice as big and there was no option but to host the event at a more accommodating location. The rehearsal was tonight and it was obvious that the grand piano was much more stiff, much older, and in the end, threw the students for a loop.

It threw me for a loop too. While I grew up performing at school, church, weddings, and various types of receptions, playing on various pianos was just something that I must have taken for granted. Because I really did not expect such a drastic difference to be noticed this evening.

Less than 48 hours to go, I can just imagine my student's cute brains going in circles thinking about how this is going to play out. Pressing harder to accommodate a stiff keyboard is something I forgot to enforce and practice during our lessons. Sigh.

And an adorable third grader who started a wee three months ago ran out of bench space ... so she stood up to play the last line of her song that was two octaves into the upper portion of the keyboard. How cute, but not good. Gulp, forgot to mention that too.

It is what it is; still learning.