Monday's Musings

Never Give Up on Your Dreams

Ever since I was about four years old, I wanted to play piano.  I never uttered that desire to my parents that I recall.  When I was in the 4th grade, I really wanted to play piano badly and spent lots of time day dreaming about it.  Still, I never uttered a word to my parents - mostly because 1.  I was sure we didn't have the money for a piano, and 2. I couldn't see any possible place in the house to put a piano.

I instead settled on playing clarinet.  I was thrilled to be making music, but I was bored out of my mind in our once-a week band practice at school.  Playing the clarinet came quite easily for me, and I was playing my part without sheet music after a few weeks.  (I still remember the music - some type of march by Tchaikovsky.)   The other students struggled endlessly to play their parts and it seemed like forever before we played as a group.   I remember the excitement when we all played our instruments together for the first time.  It was awesome to have all those parts finally come together.  But one year was enough of that, and still, I longed to play piano.

Enter high school and the fringes of the hippie movement.  I still hadn't asked to learn piano but I still had the yearning.  Luckily, one of my girlfriends had a piano in her basement and I remember the two of us playing Heart and Soul together.  The piano was badly out of tune but it was enough to quench our thirst for making music.  

I asked for a guitar the Christmas of my senior year in high school, and much to my delight I received a beautiful, classical guitar.  I still have that guitar and 3 others that have been gifted to me over the years.  I have enjoyed playing all of them.  Still, the dream of playing piano haunted me.

Enter May 2011.  I dug out a little keyboard that Keith had given to me early on in our marriage.  I pulled tutorials from YouTube and I began to teach myself.  My sister discovered my new keyboard infatuation and gave me a larger keyboard she had tucked away with no desire to play.  I played every day without fail.  By November, I had run out of keys and my sweet hubby gifted me with a great electronic piano with all 88 keys.  Ironically,  this young lady is playing the first song that I taught myself, Clubbed to Death (Theme from the Matrix) by Rob Dougan, and she's playing it on the keyboard that I now have.

WIP - "A tribute to Beethoven" journal page

I've since moved on to Beethoven and his most beloved sonata.  I play it horribly, but I know almost all of it 

by heart after just beginning to learn it 3 months ago.  I could go on and on about how I came to learn this piece and everything that it's come to mean to me, but perhaps that's another post.

What I really want to tell you is to HOLD ON TO YOUR DREAMS.  As long as you keep desire alive and have breath left in your body, your dreams can happen.  Never give up on them!

CELEBRATE * LOVE * CREATE