Oohh, the whole song!

Thaat's right! After about a month's worth of work and a year's worth of patience, I got it all down! The song To Zanarkand is composed by Nobuo Uematsu, and is now being played on a regular basis, by moi! I don't have it perfect, but it's only a matter of days, now. Be expecting a video of me playing it, too!

A little bio about me and my music...
When I was little (AKA younger than I am now), I would think of any song I wanted to hear (which, for example, would be "Mary Had a Little Lamb," "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," or other simple songs), and I could play out the entire thing by ear. I never read notes, and I HATED playing those little songs they have in the beginners book... why would I want to play a song that goes A, B, C, B, C, B, A, B, C, B, G at a slow pace, with one hand? Sure, it teaches me how to read the notes at a slow but steady pace, but... ugh, again, who wants to play songs like that? Though I admit, sometimes you have to make sacrifices.

One of the sacrifices I made was sucking up my pride and going to a teacher. I decided it would be fine to see what she could offer, and if she could help improve my playing skills. It turned out to be a double-taught class, so me and Kyra were in there together, learning together. That much was pretty cool, and because Kyra was there, I got some backup when I was explaining how horrible the experience was. I went there to learn how to play music, not how to play the 'Wiggle game'. Do you know what the 'Wiggle game' consists of? Playing music? No. Learning notes? No. Wiggling your fingers as you count to five, so you know which ones to use as you played so you didn't have to move your eyes from the sheet music.

Now, if that works for some people then good for them and they should continue working at it, but it didn't for me. So all in all, I knew I wasn't going to waste my time playing a game that involved anything that had to do with wiggling, when I could be teaching myself how to play an actual piano.

So I did.

A few months ago from now (and a few months after the teacher incident) I decided I wanted to learn Mad World. We had the sheet music, so my mom played it and I watched her fingers. A few days later, I had memorized the entire thing, and could play it (those who went to Live and Learn saw me playing it at the talent show with Kyra and my dad at vocals). I really liked that, but from there, there really weren't that many other songs I wanted to play. Soon enough, my mom came up with a song that SHE wanted to learn, so she printed out the sheet music and started playing. This song was called To Zanarkand, a song from the popular game Final Fantasy X (so I had heard the song before, but never in my living room). I was entranced by the music as I listened, and by watching her fingers, it didn't seem that hard... I decided to give it a shot.

I figured out the beginning and the right-hand-part of the song completely by ear, and was shown the left hand by my mom. From there, my mom played each part over and over for me to see and hear, then I would practice and she would critique me (or, show me what I'm doing wrong, an easier way to put my fingers to help while I play, et cetera). Eventually, I had it all down, until the very end with the left hand.

My mom began showing me some of it, but I was running out of patience, and got snappish with her. I was straining to continue playing it correctly, and then I'm told that I've been playing it wrong? Everything began falling apart, and I needed to take a break from the piano and that song.

A few days later, I showed up at the piano once again, determined to keep calm and keep at it until I had it down. I decided I didn't want to snap at my mom any more, so I tried to figure it out by ear... uhh, no. That doesn't work, not with the left hand. The melody is too hard for me to pick out, especially when I have no one playing it by my side to listen to. After groaning and grumbling, I decided to look at the sheet music... I recognized a C, I saw an F sharp, I knew what was a D. From there, I figured out the entire ending of the song! Some of it sounded weird, and I would tell my mom, but eventually I would figure it out (in most cases, I had my hand playing B, D, G, instead of C, E, A, or something like that).

Anyway. After lots of practicing (and lots of grumbling from Alec, who I kept waking up at 2PM every time I wanted to play), I have finally gotten it down! This is very exciting for me, because I've always loved the song, and now I can play it at my own leisure.

Once again, be expecting a video of me playing soon.