Music Lessons

My very antique and out of tune piano

I have personally always wanted to learn how to play the piano. Maybe because I never had lessons - or a piano - as a kid. Not that I was totally deprived or anything. I played the saxophone in band from 5th-8th grade. I can still belt out "Louie, Louie" pretty well, but that's about it.

Ellie took violin lessons for 2 months last year. It was difficult, and truthfully she didn't enjoy it. Learning an instrument takes so much commitment and time and patience. You have to want to do it. You have to practice every day. Otherwise, you will never get past that "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" level that is so frustrating (to play and to listen to!).

Lexie had free on-post lessons which she hadn't used yet (because of the deployment). She decided that she would like to try the piano.

I have been pleasantly surprised at her progress over the past 3 weeks. She has been zipping right through the lessons and playing little songs. She can pick out the different notes on the keyboard. She can tell the difference between the different types of notes. I didn't think that she would be learning as quickly as she is. She seems to be truly enjoying it!

We have a very antique piano which we picked up off of Freecycle while we were living in Monterey. Poor Andy had to carry it out of some tiny cottage in Carmel. He's such a good husband to submit to my every little whim.

The piano has traveled with us to Alaska, but we still haven't had someone come and look at it to see if it is worth fixing and tuning. That is on the list of things to do in the not-so-distant future. For now, Lexie is practicing on the keyboard instead.

Here is Nick, having fun on our piano. It does NOT make very pretty music.
I don't think that it has been tuned in 50 years.