I decided that taking piano lessons would be a good idea for multiple reasons, including evaluating my stamina, building those connections in my brain, learning a skill, etc. I had a lovely woman named Emily come to my apartment for 30 minutes earlier this week.  I have played a little bit here and there in the last year and I guess the same is true for the last 30 years. I took lessons as a kid but never really followed through.  Anyway, I learned some interesting music theory stuff that comes with taking lessons as an adult, but I also learned that taking piano lessons for me is very difficult because of my eyes. I couldn’t really follow her finger when she was pointing to a particular spot on the music sheet, nor could I actually see what she was doing when she was demonstrating things to me.  Even though her hand was right in front of me pushing down on the keys, my eyes just couldn’t really see it because of the minimal contrast between her fingers and the piano keys, the movement of pushing a piano key is minimal, and I simply cannot process all five fingers at once.

The good news is that I now know my baseline and have somewhere to start from.  It is just much more challenging for me than the average person to learn via demonstration at this task. Though, amusingly, Emily told me that for children the hardest part is NOT looking at their hands but focusing on the music.  Well, I literally cannot see my hands and the keys in a useful way, so I don’t have to worry about that!

Lesson number 2 next week!

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