What is it about the tried and true family tradition of the piano lesson? Did you have a positive or negative experience with this obligatory childhood ritual? Were you encouraged, rewarded or threatened by your parents to practice an hour a day? My siblings and I enjoyed the lessons but were reluctant to practice. As adults, many of us are envious of the ones who applied themselves and can still play Beethoven's Fur Elise while the rest of us struggle along with Chopsticks.
Tricia Tunstall's Note By Note: A Celebration of the Piano Lesson is her paean and memoir of this life-defining experience. She is passionate about the instrument and extols the virtues of the one on one communication imparted by the teacher to the student. Her insights on the musical scene, society and the role that music plays in developing one's ideals and inspirations are drawn from her own observations and those of her students.
The Library has several books on piano instruction including Ward Cannel's How to Play the Piano Despite Years of Lessons, Roger Evans' How to Play Piano, Brad Hill's The Complete Idiot's Guide to Playing Piano and Carl Humphries' The Piano Handbook.
I thought you might enjoy the first stanza of Billy Collins's poem Piano Lessons from the collection Sailing Alone Around the Room.
"My teacher lies on the floor with a bad back
off to the side of the piano.
I sit up straight on the stool.
He begins by telling me that every key
is like a different room
and I am a blind man who must learn
to walk through all twelve of them
without hitting the furniture.
I feel myself reach for the first doorknob."