Tell us a moment or an incident that you
treasure — not necessarily because it brought you happiness, but because it
taught you something about yourself.
I took piano
lessons with Ms. Denton for 5-6 years of my pre-teen to early teenage life. Ms. Denton’s focus was very much on theory
and classical pieces. She was a very
good teacher. I learned all the basics of music and theory from her, just like
my brother did before me. And I mean all
the basics, even down to the type of nail hygiene that I needed to practice in
order to play piano properly. For example, one day I went in and my nails were
a bit longer than usual…long enough that she could hear them click on the keys
when I played. She stopped me right away and quickly left the room. When she
returned, she had nail clippers, and she actually clipped my nails right then
and there, not allowing me to continue until they were short enough not to
interfere with my playing. This was
quite a contrast from my very first piano teacher, who not only played with her
fingers flat on the keys, so she wouldn’t have to cut her long, manicured
nails, but also was certain my name was Savannah, to the point that she gave me
a beaded necklace spelling out that name for a Christmas present. Needless to
say, Ms. Denton was much more serious about her craft, and she prepared us not
only to play for the enjoyment of music, but also for competition.
That said, I
am not the most competitive individual, but I did agree to attend one piano
competition during my years of lessons with her. The competition took place on
the University of Alabama campus in Tuscaloosa, about a 3-4 hour drive from my
hometown in the northern part of the state.
My dad was driving me, and not long into it, I began to feel very
nauseous. This was NOT extremely unusual for me because I did tend toward
motion sickness when I was younger, but I was old enough to sit in the front
now, and I could usually deal with it from there. So, I didn’t think a whole
lot of it at first, until I realized that I REALLY WAS going to be sick. I
always felt the effects of motion sickness in my tummy, but I rarely, if ever,
threw up from it, so I knew something else was wrong. After the first request I issued to my dad to
pull the car over, so I could vomit, we started back on the road, thinking
maybe it would pass. Within the hour, I asked him to pull over again. After I
don’t know how many stops, dad finally advised we not continue on to the competition.
I refused and told him that I still wanted to go and play the pieces I had
practiced so hard for so many months.
When we
arrived, I went into the room, played for the judges (although the entire thing
was a blur to me), and then got back in the car and asked my dad to take me
home. Thinking that would be the end of
it, I was shocked when I actually received an honorable mention for the music I
played that day. Wow! So, the honorable mention did make me smile, but mostly,
I learned that I can handle a lot more than I think I can!
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