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 Music has been a big part of my life as long as I can remember. Some of my earliest memories are sitting by my mom in church trying to sing alto with her, and at home the radio always turned on to the country music AM station in town.

I started piano lessons on January 29, 1979. I loved playing the piano, although I wasn’t always so wild about the pieces I learned in my lessons and didn’t always practice like I should have. There were times my sight reading improved faster than any other single part of playing, simply because sometimes when I played the assigned piece for my teacher it was only the second or third time I had looked at it, and I wanted to play it really well so she wouldn’t know. Still, I’m sure my teachers knew when I hadn’t practiced. As I got older, I did get much better about practicing, for the most part. I loved music even more, and even started college as a music major.

As an adult, it seems music has been pushed way down on my list of things. A couple of years ago, K (being the wonderful giving person that he is) gave me a digital piano. After years of not having a piano to play, it has been so wonderful. The digital part is especially nice, since many times the only times I can play is when the rest of the house is asleep, so I put on my headphones and play as loud as I want. The kids also really enjoy it- and the headphones are great for that too. We have some beginning piano books that E1 is working her way through, mostly on her own. E2 prefers to sit down and try and figure out the notes to songs he knows, and once he does he never forgets. E3 just plays random notes as fast as she can, but seems to really listen to the way different notes sound together. When they want formal lessons we’ll do that, but for now it works with our unschooling to just follow their lead. Actually, E1 told me the other day that she is wanting to take voice lessons, so now I’m looking for a good children’s voice teacher. I am fairly sure that they will all want music lessons of some sort at some point, but I’ll try hard not to take it personally if none of them choose the piano.