Celebrating the muisc of my heart - one imperfectly attempted song at a time

Celebrate This Week was established by Ruth Ayres

It's been almost a year since I made the decision to buy a new, shiny black baby grand piano. Just like the kind I've always wanted since I was a little girl.

I'd like to say I play it all the time and that I've gone back to the dedication and ability I had when I was younger and took piano lessons from age nine until twenty-two.

But here's the honest truth: Even though I play more than I used to, it's nowhere near as much as I thought I would.

I was hoping I'd revive some of the old classical pieces I used to play with such verve and enthusiasm that my hands would just remember how to play them. Pieces like Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C-Sharp Minor, Beethoven's Sonata Pathetique, Chopin's Waltz in C-Sharp Minor, Mozart's Fantasy in D Minor.

But that didn't happen. I just don't have the time or the stamina anymore.

What I do have, however, is the love of music. The desire to still grace my fingers across those keys, no matter how awkward and clunky it might be. The pleasure to play has come back where it wasn't before. But I have resigned myself to the fact that I will likely never really perfect a difficult piece of  classical music ever again. Very rarely do I have the stamina or attention span to attempt an entire piece from start to finish. I dip in and out of songs, playing a phrase here, a section there. When my hands don't feel like playing a particular piece, I move on to something else. When my hands tell me that they love the way a particular song feels as they move along the keys, I oblige. And while it's never close to perfect or even always pretty, my heart has finally come back to the piano. One imperfectly attempted song at a time. Just like this one (my hands are particularly a fan of playing this song):