Piano: Lessons in Music and Personal Growth
A piano from one of the many practice rooms at Jenks High School.
By: Isabella Bagnaro
My mom, like all parents, wanted me to be great. Growing up she taught me a variety of skills that I have either found hobbies in or have improved my quality of life, such as having a general understanding of sewing and teaching me to read at a really young age. I now read for fun, collect books, and I sew holes or buttons on my family’s clothes when they need it. However, not all of these endeavors worked out. My family has a long history of talent in the arts, I come from a line of very talented dancers on my moms side (I have danced for about fifteen years), and musical abilities on my dads. My childhood was filled with my dad sitting with his guitar and singing to me and my cousins - which was a favorite piece of my life at the time, and a cherished memory now. My uncle is a musical prodigy, he can play an array of instruments, very well might have perfect pitch, and can play anything by hearing it just once. He was also in the Navy band. Sadly, I didn’t inherit the singing from my dad, or the instrumental talent from my uncle… not even a fraction of it. I learned this in a rather painstaking way when my mom - very kindly - got me a piano instructor, who happened to be a friend of theirs, and purchased me a keyboard. Looking back, I must have expressed some kind of interest in music - I love music - but I certainly wasn’t meant for it. Another detail for context is that since I was a kid, I have always been unnecessarily hard on myself, which can make learning new things difficult - but, as I’ve gotten older it’s gotten much better. Once a week, or so, I would sit down at my shiny new keyboard, and my instructor would come and teach me how to play, with my mothers smiling face watching and helping. I was four when I started these lessons, that was also the age that I got diagnosed with off-the-charts ADHD and was in the process of getting treatment. If you know anything about ADHD, there are different ways it can manifest and affect different people - one way for me, was it was entirely too difficult to sit still for periods of time. The combination of severe ADHD, pressure, age, and unenjoyment quickly turned into four year old me bawling my eyes out the moment my instructor walked in the door. That poor man, he truly didn't deserve that, he was a kind person… I just wasn't having it.
All of this to say, approximately thirteen years later, seventeen year-old-me decided to retry piano lessons from none other than the wonderful, kind, endearing, and talented, Julie Hester. Mrs. Hester is a long-standing Jenks educator and favourite among all she comes in contact with - if you don’t like Mrs. Hester, you’re the problem, not her. Mrs. Hester used to instruct vocal music along with Mr. Shimp, who still leads Jenks’ competitive and outstanding vocal music program. Mrs. Hester now teaches Piano and AP Music Theory. I am in neither of those classes, but I do have the honor of being in her advisory. To give you a glimpse of who this woman is, she gives each of her advisory students a birthday card, on their birthday, every year.
I asked Mrs. Hester for a mini piano lesson on a “stay-put” Tuesday and she happily obliged. She gave me a copy of the packet she gives her beginner students and a packet for her intermediate ones - I appreciated her overestimation of my abilities. She unlocked a practice room for me. I was surprised at the cramped surroundings, but pleased with how private it felt. When she first opened the booklet, I caught a glimpse of sheet music - which I hadn’t seen since vocal music in seventh grade - and my heart started to race. Out of what exactly? I'm not sure. Nerves? Adrenaline? Memory?
I sat down at the wooden piano bench and lowered my fingers to the pearly-white keys as Mrs. Hester reminded me of how to read sheet music - which I remembered a decent amount of - and how “numbering” your fingers works. By instinct, I placed all of my fingers on the keys and kept them there as I began to play, a remmanent from my teachings of when I was young. I played through the first song with her, then with the tracks she has on her laptop. Mrs. Hester stayed to coach me through the first song, but after I got the hang of it she left me to practice. At first I panicked thinking I’d instantly forget what I was doing, but I liked figuring the next couple songs out on my own. Throughout the process of beginning to play I remembered how frustrating it used to be for me to sit still for a period of time like this; how irritated I would get with myself if I messed it up. In the same year that I began and swiftly ended my piano lessons, I also started ADHD treatment. My parents had done extensive research and doctorate seminars on different medications, and overtime - far before my diagnosis - they began to specialize in a “Brain Balance Program” that they offered to help children with ADHD get treatment without prescriptions. The pairing of this treatment, along with Upper Cervical Chiropractic Care (my dad is and my mom was a NUCCA doctor). One of the exercises I had to do in this program was to sit and tap my leg to a metronome, not ahead or behind the beats. This was excruciating and I often got so frustrated I would cry. But eventually, it got easier, and I have now learned not just how to live with my ADHD, but how to use it as a tool. I am a fantastic multitasker, I am highly productive (I am also Type A), I have a lot of passions and interesting hobbies, and I’ve found even more ways to use ADHD to my advantage.
Just like my ADHD, I learned how to enjoy this piano lesson - not just survive it. As I worked through the songs and began to get the hang of it, instead of getting frustrated when I messed up, I rejoiced when I succeeded and laughed when I didn't. After all, this was for fun. I wasn’t some musical prodigy performing in front of a room of thousands of people - though I felt like a prodigy after how quickly I got the first two songs… which only had three notes, but let a girl have her moment.
In the end, I made it to song four in around fifteen to twenty minutes, but ended up going back to song three for the last ten minutes to master it. I found a wide grin splitting my face as I played, excited to try something new and begin to understand it. If little me saw me choosing to sit at a piano bench and try - if she didn't run away from the sight of the pearly keys - she would probably gape at me as if I were someone else entirely, and in a way, I am. I am barely at all the person I was a year ago, let alone when I was a child.
But that’s what growing up is isn’t it? Little pieces of the soul I’ve always been - a dancer, inclined to take care of others, passionate, expressive, Type A, and a little intense at times - but better, more developed, stronger. And my dad is still my favorite person, always a bond that nothing could break, also better and stronger.
A couple minutes before the end of the advisory, I left the practice room and bounced back into my classroom to report to my kind hearted instructor. I placed her laptop with the tracks back onto her desk and handed her my packet.
“How did it go?” she asked endearingly, pride welling in her eyes.
“Pretty good! I really enjoyed it, I got to the fourth song, then went back to the third,” I replied, genuinely meaning every word.
With a smile, she took my packet, and wrote my name across the top. “So you can have it here, and practice anytime you want to.”
I left advisory that day knowing I’d come back to that practice room the following Tuesday. Another sign of growth, another step away from the child I used to be - though still clinging to the arts just as I had thirteen years ago.
