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Edited on Sun Sep-25-05 10:20 PM by zigster
when I was 6 years old. I moved into a new neighborhood and made frie3nds with several of the kids on the block. One of which was a child prodigy. He was only one year older than me, and he could play classical music on the piano like a maestro. His family had a beautiful Baby Grand piano in their living room. He played only classical music. And he was able to play them all: beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Bach, Lizt. You name it, he played it. Many times without the help of a music sheet.
I have no idea how he came to play the piano. I never saw his mother or father play anything at all. Just him (oh, and his older sister). And he was never forced to play the piano. In fact, whenever I was over his house, we could be in the middle of playing some game, he would interrupt our playing because it came time for him to practice his piano playing. Unlike many people who would be impressed by a 7 year old piano playing prodigy, I was bored to tears whenever he decided to play. I had NO interest in music, much less classical music. My 6 year old tastes ran to saturday morning cartoons, archie comic books, weekday afternoon reruns of classic tv shows, comedic movies like jerry lewis, abbott and costello, laurel and hardy, the little rascals, etc.
During one of his many practice seessions while I was over at his house he polayed a tune for me which he refered to as "boogie woogie". A jazz type tune from the 1940s. That tune was the youngest tune he allowed himself to play. He played that tune for me only once. Whenever I got bored with his playing classical music over the following days, I would beg him to at least play something a little more recent, like "boogie woogie" but he would always refuse.
One time I saw his big sister give a piano playing lesson (for free) to one of the poor kids in the neighborhood. My friend, seeing me watch this, offered to give me free piano playing lessons, but like a dope, I turned his offer down (like I said before, I had no interest in music, much less classical music). To this very day I regret that.
I havent had contact with my friend for somewhere around 25 years, but I have long since learned that he is a piano teacher, and an award winning piano player that has played concertos all around the world.
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