The Piano Teacher
Music has always been the theme of my life.
Ever since the tender age of four, I had been squatting over the little toy piano salvaged from a warehouse sale, pressing hard on each key to hear its soft tinkle.
At the age of six I began to demand piano lessons, so that I could make music like those "big people".
My piano teacher, Aunty Pik Chu, met me at her door, with a wide smile plastered over her face, I wasn't impressed by her modest appearance or the house she lived in, till I stepped into the music room. Pulling my grubby six year old fingers from the immaculate keys, she gently shut the lid and taught me my first lesson, dirty hands headed straight to the washroom. Instruments and other people’s items were supposed to be treated with care and respect.
I had expected piano lessons to be glamorous, full of song and melodies shaking the roof. How bitterly disappointed I was to see Aunty Pik Chu laying out an array of theory books for me to complete and to learn from. I evaded doing my homework as long as possible, coming up with every possible excuse to explain the blank pages, the careless mistakes. Aunty Pik Chu quietly guided me into learning how to take responsibility in whatever was entrusted unto me. I scraped through my theory exams, passing but barely.
Throughout my eight years of piano playing, there wasn't a moment in which I didn’t get impatient. I lost my temper a few times in the music room, banging on the ivory keys to show how frustrated I was. Aunty Pik Chu allowed me to express myself. Slowly but gradually, my anger dissolved into turbulent feelings which I let go by sifting them into the fine strands of music and mixing them into the melodies, Aunty Pik Chu nodded in approval as I let my feelings flow into my fingers running across the piano. I learnt patience, and I learnt self-control. And Aunty Pik Chu hadn’t said a word, she just sat back and did what every teacher did, allowed the student to discover different things, and in the process, growing.
Aunty Pik Chu was a teacher like no other, she led me to the piano and allowed the music to speak to me, correcting me when I went wrong and suggesting how I could do better, all these without even seeming like she was teaching. But I learnt, I learnt alright, I branched out to other instruments, letting my creativity reign. Aunty Pik Chu was constantly by my side, watching me grow up from the innocent six year old who knew nothing about the eighty-eight black and white keys to the fourteen year who could quote Tchaikovsky beats. Music pushed me on to greater things, and Aunty Pik Chu taught me how to harness that and use it well. I wouldn’t have been much without music, thank you, teacher, for making me who I am.
Oh, and guess what? I found our old picture together !
And I think we threw out the attempting pout picture (: Don't you just love me? Get you parents to arrange a meeting, reaaaaallly !
I think she'll have a better chance winning that short story contest, don't you think so, Fafa? (:
How come the idea of me dancing just makes everyone laugh?
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