Piano Lessons

We found a piano teacher, a piano djinn, who was prepared come to the aid of absolute piano beginners with no piano and no prospect of continuing with lessons, and she said: Your wish is my command.

R's wish was to learn how to play Mission Impossible straight off without learning how to read music.

The piano djinn obliged with an easy arrangent. R played with guts and brio, without warning and without waiting for advice, which probably explains why the teacher is sticking out her tongue. However R stuck at it, practising on other people's pianos, until the right and left hand were able to coincide and the melody was struck.

B's desire was to learn to read Bass Clef (so he can teach himself whatever he wants he later explained) and to play something by Henry Mancini of Pink Panther fame. After the neccessary set of exercises, B played, with finesse, a rendition of Moon River which was enough to make female relatives weep. I didn't realise good old Henry (was responsible for so many easy listening classics: them from Love Story and Midnight Cowboy and Breakfast at Tiffany's, The Windmills of your Mind... when he was 11, innocent of films and music, his father took him to see one, he decided there and then that he would be a composer of film scores.

Both children were utterly enthused by this teacher, who showed infinite patience during the near impossible mission, and after five days of one half hour lesson a day, R was also able to hammer out the theme from Indiana Jones and the Pirates of the Caribbean, and B a rock and roll number, and later on Mamy and Papy's piano, he was able to read and teach himself an arrangement of Strauss' Blue Danube.

The photo shows R explaining to B non-verbally that he should remove his hand from the keys and stop interfering.