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To cultivate my inner musician, my mom arranged for weekly piano lessons after school. She was a terrific piano player, and I was excited to learn so we could sit side-by-side on the piano bench and play show tunes together. I thought I was pretty good already, so the lessons would be a cinch: I could knock out the popular five notes of “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” over and over again with varying tempo and volume that no doubt made my parents wish a UFO really would hover over our house and take me away.
I knew nothing about the piano other than you could always find a plastic egg in the bench on Easter; the black keys were just for decoration; and if I reached my arms out wide, I could lean down and strike every key at once.
We had a piano tuner that would come to the house with mysterious tools in tow. Mr. Musser would ping-pang his way through the entire 88 keys, altering the pitch when needed. He was the only piano tuner I'd ever heard of, so I felt compelled to ask him each time he came to our house, “You can tune a piano, but can you tuna fish?”
My piano teacher's name was Barb. Barb lived on top of a steep hill, which made piano lesson day a cardiovascular event, and she was always gracious enough to offer me a glass of water. She lived in a cute little house with a big curtain closing off her kitchen. What the curtain did not hide was the jumbo bag of potato chips that was a regular feature on top of her refrigerator. I was certain one of these weeks Barb would have the fabulous idea that we skip the scales and have some chips and dip instead.
Week after week, I climbed the hill to sit at the piano and flounder. My left hand and right hand together did not make beautiful music, only a frustrated teacher. For an hour each week I struggled through the notes; I recited acronyms to help read the music, and I used a metronome to complement the rhythm of Barb's pencil hitting her notebook.
We were having a piano recital at what I assumed was the end of “piano season.” This was our Super Bowl, and Barb had selected individual pieces to promote each student's talent and hard work; for me, she chose a classic arrangement that wasn't too difficult and didn't involve too many of those black fake keys.
The recital was fast approaching, and I was not improving. There were red pencil marks covering my sheet music as Barb adjusted the length and difficulty of my performance piece with each passing lesson. She was confused and probably a little disappointed in her student's lack of advancement. Each week Barb would ask, “Are you practicing?”
Practicing? I don't need to practice; I have natural talent.
We stopped working on the left hand completely and I focused only on the right. We tore off pages 2 and 3 of the music and concentrated on the first. I had now successfully chopped “Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring” into a 15-second, one-handed performance. Maybe I should have practiced.
My next discovery of “natural talent” was running. After effortlessly claiming three blue ribbons in the 50-yard dash, I assumed I was quite the athlete. Needing no more training than downing a bag of gumdrops and crossing my fingers for luck, I coasted through elementary school field day like a champion.
As the distances grew longer and the number of participants increased, I never saw that blue ribbon again. These girls were faster than I, and after offering up my gumdrops, I had to ask, “How do you run so fast?”
“I practice,” or “I train a lot” were frequent responses. “Oh,” I thought, as I popped another gumdrop. “Well, I don't need to because I'm naturally fast.”
Through the years, my anti-training regimen took me closer and closer to the back of the pack until I gave up running altogether. It wasn't until my late 20s that I decided to gather my natural talent, add a little training, and get back into running.
Since then, what I've realized is you don't need natural talent to enjoy a jog on a quiet Sunday morning or an evening trail run with your dog; you don't need natural talent to run a charity 5K with some buddies or to join your local running group. It just takes a little practice. And, of course, a bag of gumdrops.
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Elizabeth Schnittker and her husband, Chris, own and operate Running Tracks, the valley's specialty running store located on the circle in downtown Fruita with Single Tracks Bike Shop. Elizabeth and Chris always have a bag of chips on top of their refrigerator, and they welcome your questions and comments at rfrdepo@aol.com.
I knew nothing about the piano other than you could always find a plastic egg in the bench on Easter; the black keys were just for decoration; and if I reached my arms out wide, I could lean down and strike every key at once.
We had a piano tuner that would come to the house with mysterious tools in tow. Mr. Musser would ping-pang his way through the entire 88 keys, altering the pitch when needed. He was the only piano tuner I'd ever heard of, so I felt compelled to ask him each time he came to our house, “You can tune a piano, but can you tuna fish?”
My piano teacher's name was Barb. Barb lived on top of a steep hill, which made piano lesson day a cardiovascular event, and she was always gracious enough to offer me a glass of water. She lived in a cute little house with a big curtain closing off her kitchen. What the curtain did not hide was the jumbo bag of potato chips that was a regular feature on top of her refrigerator. I was certain one of these weeks Barb would have the fabulous idea that we skip the scales and have some chips and dip instead.
Week after week, I climbed the hill to sit at the piano and flounder. My left hand and right hand together did not make beautiful music, only a frustrated teacher. For an hour each week I struggled through the notes; I recited acronyms to help read the music, and I used a metronome to complement the rhythm of Barb's pencil hitting her notebook.
We were having a piano recital at what I assumed was the end of “piano season.” This was our Super Bowl, and Barb had selected individual pieces to promote each student's talent and hard work; for me, she chose a classic arrangement that wasn't too difficult and didn't involve too many of those black fake keys.
The recital was fast approaching, and I was not improving. There were red pencil marks covering my sheet music as Barb adjusted the length and difficulty of my performance piece with each passing lesson. She was confused and probably a little disappointed in her student's lack of advancement. Each week Barb would ask, “Are you practicing?”
Practicing? I don't need to practice; I have natural talent.
We stopped working on the left hand completely and I focused only on the right. We tore off pages 2 and 3 of the music and concentrated on the first. I had now successfully chopped “Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring” into a 15-second, one-handed performance. Maybe I should have practiced.
My next discovery of “natural talent” was running. After effortlessly claiming three blue ribbons in the 50-yard dash, I assumed I was quite the athlete. Needing no more training than downing a bag of gumdrops and crossing my fingers for luck, I coasted through elementary school field day like a champion.
As the distances grew longer and the number of participants increased, I never saw that blue ribbon again. These girls were faster than I, and after offering up my gumdrops, I had to ask, “How do you run so fast?”
“I practice,” or “I train a lot” were frequent responses. “Oh,” I thought, as I popped another gumdrop. “Well, I don't need to because I'm naturally fast.”
Through the years, my anti-training regimen took me closer and closer to the back of the pack until I gave up running altogether. It wasn't until my late 20s that I decided to gather my natural talent, add a little training, and get back into running.
Since then, what I've realized is you don't need natural talent to enjoy a jog on a quiet Sunday morning or an evening trail run with your dog; you don't need natural talent to run a charity 5K with some buddies or to join your local running group. It just takes a little practice. And, of course, a bag of gumdrops.
-----------------------------------
Elizabeth Schnittker and her husband, Chris, own and operate Running Tracks, the valley's specialty running store located on the circle in downtown Fruita with Single Tracks Bike Shop. Elizabeth and Chris always have a bag of chips on top of their refrigerator, and they welcome your questions and comments at rfrdepo@aol.com.
