When I was around 7 or 8 my mum, Hazel, started having piano lessons as we had inherited an old pub piano. This piano had an awful lot of history but I think I will share some of my piano stories in a different post. However, as my mum found out, I was quite inquisitive about this new instrument. Because of costs, my mum decided to stop her lessons to let my brother, David, and I start playing.
We went to have lessons with a lady in our village called Joan Miller. Joan had both a piano and an organ and she was an organist at heart. One of the main reasons we had lessons with Joan was because she refused to do grade exams which my mum liked the idea of as she wanted us to learn for fun. Although I teach grades, I really respect her for this approach. Lessons never got that serious and rather than learning classical music, I was allowed to learn pop songs, theatre pieces and TV themes. I did learn some classical but I loved this approach as the whole thing felt more relaxed and it's something I try to approach with my students.
One of the major inspirational points from this era of my piano life was Joan's love of ragtime. She had learnt a rag by Winnifred Attwell called “Britannia rag”. I loved hearing this piece and often asked her to play it to me. Joan then gave me a simplified version of Scott Joplin's “Maple Leaf Rag” but even this was too hard for me at the time. Over the next 6 months I managed to learn it though and even to this day I can remember it off by heart.
I was not the best of students and I could see Mrs Miller getting frustrated at my lack of practice at times. I have various old books from Joan which say “Practice More” all over them! I also liked to take creative liberties with the music. However, her more liberal approach really inspired my teaching and playing and I can't thank her enough for this.
A few years ago, I bumped into Joan and her husband John and we would go over every now and then for a catch up. She makes a mean cocktail as they used to own various pubs and hotels. Always welcoming and caring she is a pleasure to speak too.
I hope that by releasing music I have made her proud. I will always keep in mind how fun Joan made our lessons and I endeavour to stay true to these principles when teaching my students. At it's core, music should be a creative, liberating experience but should also be fun.
Thank you Joan for your support and patience. I wouldn't be doing this now if it wasn't for you.