My Piano and Me

My mother played both piano and organ, and played in church almost all her life.
She hoped all her children would learn to play the piano.
She was gravely disappointed.

With my sisters, I took piano lessons from an old man in an old house on the waterfront downtown. I took lessons long enough to learn to read music. But I didn’t like to practice, so my mother let me quit (shame on her).

I loved it when my busy mother occasionally sat down at the piano in the living room and so beautifully played. I wished I could play like her.

Then something happened. For some reason unknown to me, Mother moved the piano out of the living room and into a back bedroom that came to be called The Piano Room.
About that time I decided I really did want to learn to play the piano. Maybe moving it to a back room gave me the privacy I needed, away from seven critical and intolerant siblings.

So I spent one summer, many hours every day, in The Piano Room, teaching myself to play the piano. I started with a few songs I liked and worked until I could play them. I dug out books of music and tried every song. The first song I memorized and could play with confidence was Moon River. I continued throughout the years to try on my own to practice and improve.

I wouldn’t recommend this manner of learning to play to anyone. The things you learn wrong or don’t learn at all handicap you the rest of your life. But I did learn to play well enough to make me happy. And it exposed me to music of all kinds, marches, waltzes, spirituals, classical, popular and religious.

Sometimes, just when I thought I was playing pretty well, someone would open the door and walk in the room, and I would just fall apart. I could not play worth a darn if I thought anyone could hear me. I decided this was pretty useless. So when they asked me to play in Seminary, I determined to learn to play in public so I could be useful. It has come in handy many times.

I don’t play well; I never have and never will. I learned that you don’t have to be a concert pianist to enjoy playing the piano. It's okay to just have fun. So even though I’ve never reached even an intermediate level, I can play for myself, I can play for my family, and I even occasionally play in church. It gets me by, and I enjoy it.

I know my mother wished that I had learned to play better, but I know she's glad that I brought the gift of music to my children, that we could sit around the piano and sing together, that we learned to enjoy many different kinds of music, and that my children can now share the gift she loved so much, the gift of music, with their children.


"Music is a rich gift of God, and it is in the world to make the lives of His children happier and better."
--Clara McMaster, composer of "Teach Me to Walk", "Reverently, Quietly", "My Heavenly Father Loves Me". "