I was trying to speak on the ‘phone with Stuart The Electrician, who is, without any doubt, my favourite man in my life right now. He is truly lovely and, whilst he applauds my efforts to do as much work myself on the house as I can, understands my very real need for a professional to come and tamper with anything with wires. I approach electrics from a standpoint where I can’t comprehend why the earth wire isn’t brown. Although logical, it’s not a very safe beginning, that’s for sure.
“Yes..Friday morning works well…count to three..! That’s a DOTTED MINIM! No..just the downstairs..that should be an F Sharp..! Sorry…Look, I’ll call you again tomorrow, I really do have to go..!”
Mini-Me was trying to do her piano practice and was providing a musical accompaniment to my conversation. Actually, less an accompaniment, more an interruption.
“Mummy! Come and sing along to this!” She started playing. Something. I think it may have been a tune, once. “You’re not singing! Come on!”
I curbed my tongue and instead of replying that I would love to sing along but I hadn’t the faintest idea what she was playing, I made a la-la noise and emptied the dishwasher very loudly, pretending to offer some element of percussion to her performance, but doing my best to drown it out. By this time, she’d decided to add her own unique version of the vocals.
“I’d.. like.. to.. teeeach..the..world..to..siiing..”
Oh, the irony.
To be fair to Mini-Me, it’s not entirely her fault the piano is so painful to listen to. It is feeling very sorry for itself, having just about survived seven house moves, including weeks on end bobbing up and down crossing the Atlantic, there and back, on a container ship. And I admit, it hasn’t been tuned in all that time. I will get round to it, especially if the aural torture continues.
Don’t mistake my criticism for a lack of enthusiasm. I love that Mini-Me enjoys music and wants to play an instrument. In Vienna, it was obligatory at her school for all pupils in second grade to learn to play a stringed instrument. This brainwave was proudly announced to be ‘the only such scheme at any school in the whole of Vienna!’ At the school concert where the whole year group played their strings together, I quickly realized that there is a reason for that.
Mini-Me chose to play the ‘cello. This was mainly because I vetoed the violin as being too awful and sounding like a cat being strangled if in the hands of a beginner. She did pretty well and loved having an instrument of her own. The Doctor wasn’t quite so convinced of the wisdom of loaning a school ‘cello to his seven year old daughter who took the bus to school and who had a propensity for playing soccer after class whilst still wearing it strapped to her back, with the wisdom that only a child could have that it was better to do this than leave it on the ground for it to be used as a goal post.
When I was at school, I played the clarinet. Actually, I had a clarinet. And I used to sit on a chair in the school wind band with it. I was useless. I loved playing the piano, but really never got to grips with the clarinet. It was a combination of the vile smell of the cork wax, the fact my reed was always mouldy, so I didn’t particularly relish putting it in my mouth and then, when I did manage to play, condensed spit dropped out of the bottom of it onto my shoes, which both amused and repulsed me in equal measure. In spite of my lack of talent, however, I thoroughly enjoyed being part of the wind orchestra. I spent four years as a second clarinet, managing to play about three correct notes every practice. The rest of the time I mimed, got sent out for laughing too much, or produced a noise like a braying donkey. Not me, my instrument, I mean.
I failed my Grade Five clarinet examination when I was about thirteen – I simply hadn’t practised enough – and was pretty upset by the whole experience. (I don’t much care for not being good at something). Okay, so although not having Grade Five clarinet on my CV didn’t ruin my chance of becoming the CEO of a FTSE 100 company (there are maybe one or two other reasons for that..), music qualifications are a big deal when you’re at school. It may not be noticed if you have them, but it will almost certainly be noticed if you don’t.
When Mini-Me’s piano teacher contacted me to ask if I wanted MIni-Me to prepare her Grade One exam, I was very non-committal and said something along the lines of it being totally my daughter’s choice whether she wanted to do formal examinations right now, or not. Her teacher was very understanding and agreed that, yes, she perfectly understood that it wasn’t always fair to put an almost-eight-year-old under such pressure and stress from the sheer amount of practice that was required.
“It wasn’t really her I was thinking about”, I murmured back under my breath.
Elizabeth Cherry 