Country: Piano Lessons

My piano lessons started at the ripe age of four in my grandmother’s house on her Steinway. I learned the basics, but was still far from being a professional by the time we turned country.

My country piano teacher was a little odd and very strict. She made weekly visits to our house to keep me up to date on my piano skills. Mom attempted to enroll Chuckie in piano lessons, but my teacher gave up on him on day one. Piano lessons on day one are simple, one-handers. Always a Multitasker, Chuckie played the lesson with one hand and kept the other hand in between a bag of chips and his mouth. The Piano Teacher didn’t like the Potato-chip-C,C,C move very much and the next week, she was back to one student. Throughout the years, I had one goal for the piano: Learn to play Beethoven’s Fur Elise then drop the lessons like a bad habit. I wasn’t interested in piano enough to become all dreamy and professional. I wanted one song.

I think I practiced Fur Elise to the point of violence. Not one member of my family can listen to the song without wincing: I played it that much.

On the next to the last day of my lessons, my teacher walked into the house with (quite literally) cherry red hair. When my mother asked about her new haircolor, my teacher replied that she read somewhere that Jello could be used to set your hair at night. She set her the night before with Cherry Jello, thus creating the whimsical red. Note: you can use Jello to set your hair, but don’t go picking a flavor, unless you desire to eat it or smell like that flavor for days. Go with unflavored. Or be different. Whatever.

On that same day, I played Fur Elise for my teacher like I never did before. It was a beautiful, magical moment and I knew right away that I didn’t want more. Finished. But for some reason, I didn’t share this breakthrough with anyone else.

The next week, my teacher showed up as scheduled and while I watched her car pull into the driveway, I quickly ran out into the field behind the house. This was, apparently, my way of making a statement. Crouching down behind the vast cover of grass, I watched and listened as my mother and teacher screamed for me. I turned my back and covered my ears, waiting, patiently and fearfully, for my teacher to leave forever.

She did leave forever and I was reprimanded heavily by my mother for the embarrassment and not listening to a damn thing. I think I was grounded for a week. But being grounded for a week really meant that night, with the threat of a week. I woke up and cleaned the house the next morning to guilt my way into an ungrounding. To this day, I can play Fur Elise by heart.