I take my first piano lesson this morning. I found a lady in a subdivision north of us. Hopefully she'll be teaching Nate too. She's waiting to schedule more kids until her child's soccer schedule is announced.
I've wanted to take piano lessons since I was in 4th grade. That year our parents sat us down and said "if you could learn a musical instrument, what would it be?" I immediately said piano. But that was going to be too expensive and hard to move from place to place. So I chose guitar.
I took my first lessons from a german guy that came to our house on base. He didn't speak a lot of english. He primary method of teaching was to demonstrate on the guitar, hand it to you, and have you play it back. If you messed up too many times in a row he would cry "You make me crazy!" and yank it away from you.
After we left Germany we went to West Va and then to Iowa for a year. No lessons, but I did play a lot. Then in Texas my mom found a teacher who was in a Country band. His name was Johnny Shortes and my Mom and I would go to the lessons together, which basically ended up being a half-hour jam session. We would all three sing and Johnny and I would play. We had a great time!
In Minnesota, I took only a few guitar lessons from a hippie-type guy down the road from us. The only thing I really remember learning from him was "Blackbird". I think I must have quit because I got too busy.
The guitar basically got Bob and I together, too. In college we played together and worked on songs he had written. This was good because Bob was so shy he didn't talk much and it gave us something in common to do and talk about.
After we were married, we played short songs and choruses for our church, Advent UMC in Eagan. I stopped playing guitar when we left Advent. We had just had Nate and we did not get involved in the music program at all at Minnehaha. I finally picked the box back up when we got here to South Carolina. Bob and I play and sing with a little impromptu Praise & Worship band we've got going.
I'm excited about the piano lessons! I'm going to quit, though, as soon as I learn to play ragtime... 5 or 6 years from now. That's all I really care about playing...ragtime.
7:19:28 AM 
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