Piano diaries

One of the interesting things about having a child who writes about family experiences is that you go read a different point of view to things you also remember.  It's not like having a four year old parrot words to some other person that you've said in a thoughtless moment that make you wince, but it stops you for a second sometimes.

I guess I'm taking a turn today.

My oldest daughter speaks of a rough patch in her adolescence as part of her Nauvoo Times column here recently, when she quit piano.  She had real talent and an affinity for music, and we actually got a second car finally so that I could get her started on piano lessons, for which I needed to know I had transportation that wasn't dependent on my husband's schedule.  She was starting third grade; I would have started her a year earlier if it had been possible.  I was anxious not to let it get any later; I knew she needed this.

I did not know where to find a teacher.  I had prayed for a piano the year before, and was given the opportunity to buy a wonderful old upright, dubbed an "upright concert grand" by its maker, the Cable company.  (It's now a hundred years old.)  I asked a friend whose kids were taking piano, who described their teacher's beginning process, and we went from there.  She was pleasant, affordable, not too far away, and we signed up.

After two years, it was apparent to me that this teacher was not going to develop the musicianship that my daughter needed.  We stayed another year while I tried to figure out where else to go.  When I changed teachers, I went with a master teacher--because I knew him--who used an entirely different approach, and usually started with it very young.  I was looking for the mastery, but the method didn't make a good transition.  He was the one, though, who later steered us to the teacher who worked at the music store.

The year that we had to give up and let Emily quit her lessons, she was having a difficult year all around.  She was in the last group that had sixth grade at the elementary school, so both the 5th and 6th grades shifted to middle school.  She was in a new program, as well as a new school structure, with kids who had been together in that program through three years already in their elementary school, and as we met privately with the core teacher, they were described as the most closed clique she had ever had.  Emily was having a hard time trying to 'break in' to the group.  There were some frictions also in Mutual (church youth group), where she was a new Beehive (youngest class).

It seemed to us as parents, looking at things our child might not be able to see yet, that she couldn't quit school, or church, but she could quit music; piano, and the fit or lack of it with the method of her teacher, became the flashpoint of life.  We knew she had talent, and interest.  I knew that she would need an outlet, particularly when other parts of her life were difficult, and that music could be a very important outlet for her if she would let it, but it had degenerated into a battle.  I hoped for joy for her, and joy, any hope for joy it seemed, had dropped out of the equation.  So I said, yes, she could quit.

But it didn't change her nature or her need, looking ahead.  What was a parent to do?

We decided to spring for a keyboard, a decent-quality, full-size one, with enough bells and whistles to play around with that it would be fun.  We gave it to her for Christmas, hoping that she would be pleased and not react with scorn that we were trying to manipulate her, because we weren't.  We were praying that she would find a reason to go back to lessons, to developing her talent, because that was the only thing it was about:  she had a gift and it could bring her great satisfaction and emotional relief when she was stressed out with life.  I didn't know she would make a career out of it, but I knew whatever she did with it would matter to her, and that to forgo it would be a great loss indeed.  It made my heart hurt.

She did enjoy that keyboard to play around with, to experiment and try things out; a new instrument that came without any pressure.  And we offered our continuing prayer, as to what was good for her sake, not mine.  So when she approached me with the desire to have lessons again, but to find a different teacher, I kept my mouth shut and just said okay, we can do that.

A lot of parenting is holding your peace when you are otherwise inclined, and it's a hard thing to learn, sometimes.  Patience is a virtue, but not always an easy one. I'm grateful that things worked out.