Wednesday, May 29, 2013

The Piano Ace

WHEN I was still young, we had a Yamaha electronic keyboard set up beside our TV. It wasn't anything special, really, but apparently it served our family well for more than a decade. This 'piano' was where I got my first taste of music, and it was also where I learned how to play simple songs like Little Brown Jug, Oh When The Saints, and the ever classic Do-Re-Mi. Actually, I even learned the Wedding March on that thing, and if I ever joke that I'll play at your wedding, then that would be the reason for it.

As far as formal musical education goes, I actually did take piano lessons while in elementary, although I never got to the advanced lessons. My piano teacher then was Mrs. Kallos, who was pretty nice and wasn't known for beating hands (yay!). I spent quite a lot of afternoons in her music building; however, I remember that most of it was spent playing things like mini bowling and mini billiards. Estudiantina and Barbecue Boogie were my last two recital pieces under her tutelage, both of which are pretty simple and I could still play until now.

Most of the songs I know now, however, were learned on a Casio keyboard that served me throughout my college life. It has more songs stored in it compared with our Yamaha, and there are even tutorials and 'exams' if ever I wanted to learn one of the them. Also, the keys light up in bright red whenever pressed, which is pretty cool to me. Having spent a lot of time inside a cramped dormitory room with barely anything to do, I managed to learn several simple but beautiful songs by learning and memorizing sheet music. (I still can't play while reading notes.)

Here are a couple of videos of me playing Dear You from the anime Higurashi  no Naku Koro and Not Tomorrow from the horror video game Silent Hill on my sister's Roland keyboard. 






Music has always been part of my growing up, I guess, even if I'm not really any sort of expert or prodigy in it. Still, it's fun playing and learning new songs now and again, especially now when almost everything I do lacks any sort of culture of sophistication. Huh, maybe I should learn a new song.

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