Let’s Make Noise!

For my musical education I was “forced” as a young child of maybe 8 or 9 to learn the flute (as in the ‘recorder’ – weird English name for this instrument!)

I never really liked it, I recall, but nevertheless even expanded my range from soprano to alto and had two of the beasts.

I don’t know if the rest of my family remembers this, but it stands clearly out in my mind that at some common dinner we talked about my musical endeavors and I caused a big laugh with the following statement:

“I’d like to play the piano, but the recorder is cheaper.”

It shall be added that my family was far from rich, so this was a very mindful statement from my side

I gave up playing the recorder when I became a teenager and did not touch any musical instrument until I went to Japan as an exchange student at the age of 24. Back then, in Fukuoka, I became a member of the “Rock Club” of the Kyushu University. A gathering of some 40 students engaged in several bands, playing rock music of all sorts and I sat down behind the drums having no clue how to play them.

This resulted in a love affair with drums, peaking in taking lessons in Germany and even owning a (used) black Pearl drum-set at one point, which I was allowed to keep in the multipurpose room of the student dorm I lived in. During these times I played in a music-school band and we called ourselves “It’s a Sushi” (Natsukashii ne, Tan chan!) and even had one or two gigs and recorded one song on a compilation CD of the school.

Moving to Japan, there were several years again of no music endeavors, until some Japanese friends and I formed a band called “Iguana Complex”. I had meanwhile more or less forgotten how to play the drums and found myself suddenly in the vocal position We had four “Iguana Complex” gigs in dark, tiny and secretive live-houses of Tokyo (awesome, these sub-culture live-house places) until also that band fell apart, mostly due to time constraints of the members.

Not wanting to give up on music, I started with vocal lessons at the Yamaha music school in 2007, funnily only after “Iguana Complex” disbanded. There was a year-and-a-half stint in between with some drum lessons, but then my teacher died suddenly (he was only around 60) and on came the financial crisis and salary cuts and I gave up on drum lessons with a new teacher also due to financial reasons.

I kept up the vocal lessons though and with it being 2014 now, I had vocal lessons for a good six and a half years.

There is only that much you can learn with vocal lessons and I was itching last year more and more to do something new.

So, here I am, going back to my childhood days and fulfilling a very old wish – to learn the piano! Finally!

I gave up on the vocal lessons and last night, I had my first (popular) piano lesson.

And thanks to modern technology piano is not at all that expensive anymore, this is my new 250,- something Euro (of course Yamaha) keyboard

I am now brooding over re-learning musical notation ;-), learning where the notes are on the keyboard and cricking my fingers around

It’s a weird and fun feeling to finally going to challenge the piano and I’m looking forward to the presumably long journey and the prospect of some song writing maybe in the future And today, being snowed in, is a perfect opportunity to practice a bit!