Prodigy

Chapter One

Chapter One

I had been playing piano for as long as I could remember. According to my parents, I had been playing since I was able to hoist myself on top of the piano bench. Back then, my legs barely swung over the bench and my fingers could hardly cover the span of four keys. But from a young age, piano had been a major part of my life.

I hadn't started taking lessons until I was around four years old. And I've been taking lessons with the same teacher, Maestro Amelin, for the past thirteen years. At first, it started off with one half hour lesson a week, but Maestro Amelin was impressed with my ability to pick up quickly, and requested that my lessons become longer. So once a week half hours became weekly hour lessons, and not long after, once a week turned to twice a week. Currently, I study three times a week with Maestro Amelin and practice for at least two hours on my own every day.

I won my first competition and thousand dollars when I was eight. Many people call me a prodigy, I just call it determination.

Of course, half of it wasn't my own determination. Once the word 'prodigy' came out of Maestro Amelin's lips, my parents went crazy. Obviously, he wanted my lessons to increase, but I had never imagined my parents to agree so easily. Lessons weren't cheap, but for years they shoveled away their money in the hopes that I would make some of my own and it would all pay off in the end. For years I hated it. I would refuse to go to the lessons, I would fake sick, cry, and do anything I could to get out of them. But my parents were strict, and to my dismay, I had an almost perfect attendance record.

Everything changed my freshman year of high school. I went from the local private school to a public school where some kids actually thought piano playing skills were cool. After that, I went with it. My high school had a decent music program, we weren't a fine arts school, but for a public school, we were great. The band and choral programs were great along with the drama department. Unfortunately, they didn't have a piano lab at my school before I came. That quickly changed once the choir director heard me play. The next week, I had my own private class every day with a decent teacher. Of course, the class wasn't nearly as demanding as my private lessons could be, but it was more added practice, which made my parents happy.

Eventually, my piano skills were used outside the classroom. I became the choir's regular accompanist and even got to perform a couple songs with the band. I then became the keyboard player for the school's jazz band and come my junior year, I was requested to run all the music aspects of any musical the drama department performed. The general education classes, minus the math unfortunately, thinned out by my junior year, and I found that my schedule was mostly music. The school was willing to break some rules for their 'musical prodigy' I guess. Or something like that.

Looking down at my senior year schedule, I grimaced. My classes were packed this year. Piano pedagogy IV, Piano accompanying III, Keyboard Literature, Music History, Precalculus, AP Music Theory, Studio Class.

Hopefully Precalc would be easy. The rest of the classes would be somewhat of a breeze. Yes, there would be endless piles of homework (no, music classes are not all fun and games) but I would be able to handle it. Hopefully.