Stocking: Piano means weeping/wailing … but they still have to do it
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My kids have piano lessons on Monday. On Tuesday, I spend the drive home from work steeling myself for the inevitable weeping and wailing of my 9-year-old when I sit down with him to practice the piano. He will have a new song or two requiring my assistance with notes and counting. I call it practicing the piano; he calls it torture.
I play the piano, and taught my first three children myself until we moved to Idaho. Then I found a great piano teacher and let him take over the weekly lessons for my first three, and then added my youngest about two years ago. At first, McKay was so excited to take lessons. He wanted to play in recitals and competitions like his older brothers and sister. However, it wasn’t long before the practices became challenging and he realized that he wouldn’t be able to play like his older brothers after just three lessons.
The day after lessons is always the hardest. There is a new song to learn and I’m a mean mom. I won’t play it for him because he’ll just learn the timing by ear, and not learn how to count. I make him play hands separately. First the right hand: say note names then count out loud. Then the left: say note names then count out loud. When I think he has the notes and timing down, it’s time for hands together. Slowly. And that’s the part that puts McKay over the edge. “Why can’t I play it fast?” he wails. “I know what I’m doing! I don’t have to go slow!”
Except he doesn’t know what he’s doing. He forgets the timing he just learned. His fingering is all wrong. The more I say “Slower” the faster he goes. Then he makes a mistake (or 10) and I stop him and make him start over.
“Why?” he whines (except it sounds like “WHHHHYYYYY?” and lasts for about 10 seconds). “Because you played it wrong. Start over. Slower this time.”
“Oh, Whhhhyyyyy?” he cries again. His face is getting red and I can see that the tears are coming. I can feel the frustration building inside me. I try not to lose my cool — I’m the parent.
“Just slow it down,” I calmly say, clenching my fists. “You know the notes; you just need to get the message from your brain to your fingers. Slow down and give the message time to travel.”
He pulls his hands in tightly to his chest and his clenched fists match mine: “I hate piano! I’m going to burn my books! I’m going to quit!”
“You can’t quit,” I tell him. “I won’t let you.” Then I ask, “How old was Braxton when he quit taking piano lessons?”
McKay holds his breath, thinking. “I don’t know. High school?”
“He took lessons all the way up to graduation,” I tell him. “How old is Tanner?”
“Sixteen,” McKay answers. Then whines, “And he’s still taking! I’m never going to be done! I’m going to have to take lessons until I die!”
(I can only hope.)
“Well, if it’s going to be that long, we may as well get at it, buddy,” and I point to the measure on the music where I want him to start. He’s calmer now and takes it slow. Well, slower. He focuses and finishes the passage then turns to me: “I did it! I did it!”
Tuesdays are long days, and it’s the same scene week after week: torture at the piano. However, week after week he passes off music and gets new songs to learn. He has, though, decided that lessons up until high school graduation are better than lessons until death. This past Monday, as he gathered his books to go to piano lessons, I heard him gleefully tell his sister, “Only eight more years of piano lessons!”