PIANO GIRL

People thought it was an extravagance when I bought the piano.

“It’s like something out of Jools Holland”, they said. “It’s not as if you even play the piano.”

And they were right, of course.

I did have a piano back in the day when I was a teenager. A second-hand upright wooden piano purchased for me by my late parents for £25 from the Manchester Evening News classified ads.

And I did try to play it. And trying it was. Practising endless scales and arpeggios and then the pieces, “The Jolly Farmer,” “The Musical Box”…

But I just couldn’t get the hang of it.

So much so that one day my exasperated school piano teacher said to me during my private lesson, “If you don’t get it right next time, I’m going to jam your fingers in the piano lid.”

Oddly enough, this didn’t help.

I told my mum. A letter was despatched. A few days later a reply came back from the school’s Head of Music:

“Mr Robbins said he didn’t mean those comments as seriously as Julie took them.”

Nevertheless, I lost my heart for playing after that.

The piano remained silent for a long time after that apart from when one of my tortoiseshell cats occasionally wandered idly over its keys.

And then, one day, the piano was hauled away to refresh the room and make way for new furniture.

So, I don’t know why, years later after retirement and with time on my hands, I was persuaded to have another go and bought a basic keyboard instrument.

There followed some classes at a central London adult college for a year or two. Slow going still but with some patient tuition, at least.

Then one day, the teacher said it was time to progress from a keyboard to a piano.

There followed a visit to the Yamaha store where, dazzled by the vast choice and the charm of the attractive salesman, I plumped for a huge, shiny black digital piano – with all the bells and whistles – and a fancy price to match.

Some time later, I attended a Christmas Open Day at the College of Psychic Studies, hoping wistfully perhaps to gain a seasonal message from my late parents.

In one of the sessions on offer, the medium turned to me and said: “Someone plays the piano?”

“Yes, that’s me,” I said.

“And you practise every day?”

“Yes, sort of….” I replied, hesitantly.

“Well,” he continued. “When you play, your parents are listening to you…..”

And I felt a shiver of encouragement and hope.

That perhaps my piano was not just a musical extravagance bought on a whimsy, but maybe it was also a time machine, a keeper of memories, a portal….

Maybe, the vibrations of my musical efforts reached heaven. Maybe I wasn’t just playing for myself any more but a whole celestial audience of my ancestors.

That piano had become a link to my past, an occupation for the present and the reassurance perhaps that life goes on……

It was time to resume my practising, ignore the critics and play on!