Chapter 267: Piano Song

Okay, so it is Saturday morning. I had every intention of writing my Friday blog on Friday night, as usual, but I got a little bit distracted by falling asleep early. I didn't actually intend to fall asleep but I laid down on my bed, in the opposite position than I normally sleep in, to watch a YouTube review of this makeup line I've been curious about. The video was pretty long and needed time to buffer, so I left it to do that while I laid in my bed playing a game on my cell phone. Somewhere in that process, I fell asleep. I WAS really tired, though. Yesterday was a really long day, after all. I mean, it wasn't particularly stressful or difficult - it was just a long day. It really dragged along. As I mentioned in last night's unadvertised blog, the first thing on my agenda yesterday was to call Viktor and reschedule my Friday night piano lesson. Before I go into that, though, I did want to discuss the reason that I didn't advertise last night's blog. You see, last night's blog, to be frank, wasn'tvery good. It also wasn't very positive. There was also the fact that I was kind of venting about things that took place in the workplace and, in spite of the fact that I didn't name a single name or give any specific information about the workplace or anything, I didn't want to call attention to it on Facebook because there are plenty of people who I work with on Facebook who could wind up misconstruing my words or using them against me. It sucks that I have to think about things that way but it has kind of been proven over the course of my time there that it has a tendency to happen that way. I have actually considered taking the post down altogether but that is definitely not something that I want to do. After all, this blog is about taking an honest look at my life at this point and I am not interested in censoring that.

So, as I mentioned, at the top of my agenda for yesterday was calling Viktor to reschedule my piano lesson this week. Normally, my piano lessons are on Wednesdays but Viktor asked me to reschedule for Friday this week. As it turned out, though, my sister wasn't able to drive me there on Friday night, so the plan was to call & see if I could perhaps reschedule for Monday. This is not what wound up happening at all, unfortunately. After a little bit of phone tag, I finally spoke with Viktor and he dropped a bit of a bombshell on me. You see, Viktor had mentioned the possibility that he may be leaving the Allegro Academy and offering lessons from his home. Then he mentioned the idea of just taking the month of August away from the academy but also providing lessons from his home. The last time I had spoken with him, though, none of this was mentioned and it seemed as if none of it were actually going to happen, so I was taken by surprise when I spoke with him yesterday and found out that yesterday was his last day at the academy until September. So, we rescheduled my lesson - for September 3rd. As odd as it may seem, considering how much I love my piano lessons, I was actually kind of happy to hear this news. As I discussed in last night's unadvertised blog, I have been feeling a strange lack of enthusiasm for my piano lessons recently and I really feel like taking a month off from them could help with that. Plus, a month away from my lessons will give me some extra time to practice the stuff that I've already learned and try to get really good at them. I think that would be a really good thing for me. Even more than that, though, I think this will be a really good opportunity to test my abilities on my own and kind of see how necessary lessons really are at this point. Don't get me wrong, I have no intentions of stopping my lessons moving forward but I just want to find out whether or not I am in a place where I can learn new pieces on my own. So, that is exactly what I intend to do this month.

I was initially going to agonize over what piece I should try to learn on my own but I knew immediately what the piece I needed to learn was - "Speechless" by Lady Gaga. It seems so obvious to me! Of course the first piece that I learn on my own should be a Lady Gaga song - Lady Gaga is my biggest inspiration, musically and artistically, and it just seems clear that trying to learn from her would be the perfect place to start working on my own and trying to build myself and my style as an artist. So, Lady Gaga was a clear choice but she's got a pretty large selection of songs. "Speechless," I wouldn't necessarily say is my favorite song of hers, although I have always felt a really strong connection to it. The main reason that I wanted to learn "Speechless" first, though, is because it is my Mom's favorite Gaga song and I have always imagined when I am playing my first local bar show or something, that I would play it and dedicate it to her. It just makes sense to learn it first because it is the first song that I absolutely know that I want to cover. So, last night I downloaded the sheet music and kind of got started on learning the song. The left hand portion has gone incredibly well & I can sit down and play it without actually looking. On the other hand, the right hand is proving a bit more difficult. It just seems like it's trying to fit too many notes into the space provided. I don't know how to explain that exactly but I am going to continue working on it and see what I can sort out. I am really excited about it, though. I am really excited about the idea of going back in for my lesson on September 3rd and having a whole new piece down that I learned without any help. I have a whole month to get it down and I don't have any doubt that I will be able to get it done.

So, now I have some extra cash this month AND I have this opportunity to try to learn some on my own. It's a pretty exciting time. For now, though, I need to go off and get ready for the day. I am not sure of my plans for today - there's been talks of hanging out with Whitney & Nate tonight but I'm not sure if that's happening or not. What I am sure of is the fact that I need to do some cleaning around the house either way. I also have a Netflix movie here to watch, "The Marc Pease Experience," which I'm pretty excited to see because it stars two of my favorite actors, Jason Schwartzmann and Anna Kendrick. So, I'll probably watch that in a little while, as well. Beyond that, I really don't know. I need to eat something for breakfast. I think I'll go do that now. Have a great day!