I showed up at his house and the pure glee on his face when he saw the piano and heard me say, “I thought I would ask if I could keep this at your place for a while.” was just humbling.  I’ve had this piano/keyboard for longer than I’ve had this friend!  I know I take it for granted, and this was a reminder of how lucky I am to have it.  The first thing my friend did was clear a space for the keyboard.  He set it up and sat down to play.  He and another friend (both of whom have never had piano lessons, unlike me with 13+ years of lessons) went on the internet, looking for tutorials on how to play The Imperial March from Star Wars (which is outside my frame of reference, but I hear it’s pretty cool), the Peanuts song and a number of other TV and movie related pieces.  After a while I decided to wow them with my finesse on the keyboard and as I sat down I proudly announced, ”I’m going to play The Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven (the actual name of the piece is Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor “Quasi una fantasia”, Op. 27, No. 2, but it is also known as The Moonlight Sonata).  It’s one of my best competition and performance pieces.”  And then played something that was not the song I intended, in fact, I don’t even know what it was!  After several attempts I conceded that I no longer had the piece memorized and needed the music to remind myself.  But I hadn’t brought my sheet music with me, that was still at home.  I took a turn on the internet and found an audio file of the song and listened carefully.  I sat at the piano again and worked out the first few bars, my fingers moving toward the keys I knew I was supposed to play but I was still unsure as to which keys were the right ones and I stumbled and painfully made my way through a really unrecognizable version.  What do you do in that instance?  Try again of course!  So I listened again to the recording, this time playing along on my piano.  I still didn’t have it perfect but it was much better than my original attempt. 

My friend, following along with the Beethoven theme, brought up Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor, Op. 13, or Sonata Pathétique asking me if I could play it.  This composition continues to defeat me.  I can muddle my way through it, but I am not anywhere near to performance ready with it, nor am I playing it the way that I’m sure Beethoven himself meant it to be played.  Just listening to this piece makes me green with envy.  Someone else can play this?  It inspires me to practice and finally master this beast of a song.  From Sonata Pathétique  we moved on to Rachmaninoff (I sure have been into him lately!), Tchaikovsky and Rubenstein, just to name a few.  My friends were surprised at how excited I became talking about these different composers, their relationships with each other (Rubenstein was an inspiration to Rachmaninoff and tutor to Tchaikovsky), and their music.  I don’t usually talk with my friends about classical music or composers.  Our conversations usually center around modern day musicians (“Hey, did you hear the new  album by…” is a common start to a conversation in my social circle).  It was refreshing and fun to talk about the differences between composers and the periods or styles they composed in.  There are so many differences to discover!  Even more interesting to me is all the connections and relationships that so many of these musicians had with one another.  My friend asked me how I became interested in classical music and I explained that my musical tastes were really influenced by my piano (and voice) lessons that I took when I was younger.  My teachers introduced me to different composers, different musical styles and encouraged me to continue to explore on my own.  It seems that every day I’m reminded of how much I took from my piano lessons, and many times what I learned isn’t even related to the piano!   Have you ever noticed that?  I’d love to hear!