Monday, March 05, 2007

Music and me - at eighteen


from w
She rides a borrowed bike
to nervous piano lessons in Alma Street,
practices in the hostel lounge
annoying others with obsessive Bach fugues,
scales minor rand augmented.
They leave her alone, go laughing with friends
as she plunges into Rachmaninoff
frightening the dust motes and mice.
One day the television arrives,
is placed solidly into the corner.
Residents watch a blur of snow
and occasionally patches of face.
The piano stilled, she crouches behind viewers,
strains at the back of the crowd
to see what they are seeing.

At the hostel for trainee teachers, the music student practices Bach and Rachmaninoff for an exam while most of her friends go out and have a good time. She walks to a different drum-beat focussed on music as well as art studies. I've made her a blonde this time!

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2 Comments:

Blogger Penny said...

So were you blond? Sounds like a difficult time for a music teacher. Love the way you prtray it.

1:02 PM  
Blogger Peceli and Wendy's Blog said...

Oh Penny, that's artist's license! I was blonde as a toddler, then mouse-brown most of my life, now sometimes multicoloured...with a little bit of help from my friends! Natural brown turns golden then blonde with the washes!
About music teaching - I was really an art teacher but sometimes was given a music class of forty kids - at Bendigo High, then I took off for Fiji.
w.

1:36 PM  

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