Musical Ability (or lack thereof)

I have attempted to learn how to play a musical instrument many times in my life. However, due to a mixture of fate, bad karma and sheer lack of will power, I always failed. Take the piano, for instance: I started at level 1 with one teacher, ready to work my way to the top. Then Teacher #1 suggested I take lessons with her daughter, who would be taking her beginner students, telling me I should wait for her to contact me about lessons during the summer. Fall rolled around, and after I hadn't heard from this so-called "daughter" who was taking on her beginner students, I realized that I had just been ditched by my piano teacher.


So, I find another teacher. Since so much time has lapsed between my first piano lesson experience and my second, we decide I should just start over again at Level 1. So I do. And then, wonder of all wonders, this teacher decides to go to college and stop teaching. Good for her, bad for me. I am once again without a teacher, and I'm starting to wonder if I really suck that bad at the piano in order to drive two teachers away in such a short amount of time.


But, I find another teacher. This one is lovely and actually teaches me beyond Level 1, but she becomes sick and retires from teaching the piano. After three strikes with the piano, I decide I am out of the game.


Years have passed, and I still wish I could play the piano. I just spent too many years in seminary hearing people ask, "Jessica, you can play the piano, right?" "Um. No, actually." "What!? I thought for sure you played the piano! You just seem like the piano-playing type!"


Piano-playing type? I think the fact that I'm a girl and I'm Mormon makes me "the piano-playing type."


Then, I tried to learn how to play the guitar. I learned a song. Singular. I still know it and I still play it at -15 mph.


And now, here I am yet again: I learned how to play a song on the guitar yesterday. The tempo isn't exactly up to speed, mostly because my fingers can't navigate the guitar strings fast enough, but still. It's one more step I've taken toward polishing my musical ability (Which, until now, only kind of existed in singing. Which, incidentally, is probably what made me the piano-playing type.) So watch out. You might not be wary of just one song, but someday, I will rock that guitar's strings off.

Thankfully, now I can play ONE song the next time I'm with a huge group of people (Some old friends, some strangers) and my old friends say, "Jessica! SING for us," (I picture them saying it exactly like the Phantom does to Christine, cause that's what it feels like when they demand it and I feel powerless to refuse), and then all the strangers in the room assume I can play a guitar because my friends say I can sing, and they're all egging me on to sing which is really awkward when it's acapella and you've just met these people...And because I happened to be strumming the one song I know at a turtle's pace, they assume I'm just hiding my light under a bushel and they won't leave me alone until I play and sing. Then I end up singing and playing really awkwardly and they finally believe me when I say, "No, I really can't play the guitar." ("But you just seem like the guitar-playing type!")


Whew. Yes, that actually happened. More than once. So, to save myself from further embarrassment, I went home that night and learned to play a song on the guitar at 1:00 in the morning. My fingers feel beyond calloused to the point of internal bruising, but that's okay. I will never have to live through one of those awkward social situations again:) And the best news is, I'm one guitar song more talented today than I was yesterday.