A lengthy, rambling, discourse on piano fiddling

Hunh. That title makes it sound as though I've been doing something with a fiddle and a piano simultaneously. That title is misleading, I guess. I have no facility with the fiddle.

What I've really been doing is fiddling around on the piano. I prefer "fiddling around on" to "playing" because the latter implies that I can, in fact, play. Which is false. What I can do is read music and learn simple tunes, and fool around with things. I really like coming to my parents' and having a piano around (that I don't have to sneak into Seabury Lounge at unsettlingly late hours to use, and that Seymour doesn't have to hear me fiddle with). Yesterday, I decided it might be useful if I learned to play the "Lute Lullaby" that the Ladies of the Court sing for Ohio's Boar's Head, since my mother needs to learn the 2nd soprano part by Saturday for unit rehearsal. One of the things that makes it work for our volunteer, once-a-year, group is that it's fairly simple, so it wasn't too tough to learn - and it was really fun.

I keep forgetting how much I really like playing the piano when I actually sit down and do it. I'm still a little regretful that I didn't switch piano teachers earlier in life - instead, I quit after three years of lessons and got a new teacher after about six years off. I really loved my piano lessons with that second teacher, and I wonder if I would have stuck with them had I started with her. Piano lessons might have been the thing I missed most about going off to college, actually. I'm pretty sure I have more natural talent for piano than I do for singing or guitar, but I've never gotten to a level where I have any kind of useful skills in terms of playing for anyone but myself. Certainly piano is the only instrument I've ever tried where more effort and discipline produce remarkably improved effects, and it draws me in in a different way than either of the others.

At any rate, I've decided that piano lessons are near the top of the list of non-churchy things I'd like to do when I get a full-time church job, assuming I have access to a piano somehow. Don't worry - it's really a very short list, and I'm well aware that most of it just won't happen. Pretty much the list is dance classes, a second modern language (probably French), and piano lessons. Oh, and Girl Scouting. Ok, so not a terribly short list in terms of time consumption. But, like I said, I know most of it won't happen. Assuming I don't have to buy a piano to make lessons work, picking up piano lessons is more affordable than taking French (though a second modern language is certainly the most necessary of the three). Certainly starting piano lessons, which are generally not a group affair, is far less intimidating than getting back into dancing.

Anyway, enough rambling for now. I've spent almost all of the last 48 hours alone, and have just had a mocha - can you tell? I think I'd better go do something else with my caffeinated brain - maybe get ahead on some class reading or something equally, um, calming. Or I could always just go home and fiddle around on the piano some more.