Chapter 6: Increasing practice time
- Sit next to child on piano bench. Too close to the child. Remind them that you were almost a concert pianist yourself. Sigh at all mistakes. Swat poor elbow position. Moan.
- Hold Fluffy Woogums out the window. If mistakes are being made mention Fluffy Woogums has begun to wiggle.
- Child comes home to you at the piano drenched in sweat and banging one note exhaustedly. Groan that the bomb will go off if the piano isn’t played. Mime agony in limbs when child heroically takes your place. Go to a bar.
- Replace child’s car seat with a piano bench.
- Bring over another child the same age and a much better pianist. After listening to her play with exaggerated pleasure, let your child overhear a whispered argument with your husband about “the upgrade”. New child must also be excessively polite.
- Replace child’s bed with piano.
- Attach token-operated locks to fridge, bathroom, windows and front door. Tokens may be obtained from a dispenser in the piano activated by the keys. A remarkable increase in playing speed can be obtained.
- Replace all furniture with pianos.
- Hire old lady to impersonate lost grandmother and spend hours forming a close, baking-based connection to the delighted child before collapsing on the floor, clutching child’s leg and moaning “Promise me… you will not stop… the lessons”, then dying horribly. Child will have a limited but serious musical career.
[Updated: October 20, 2014.]
Lev Bratishenko has written for Abitare, Canadian Architect, Cabinet, CBC Music, Gizmodo, Icon, Maclean’s, Mark, Triple Canopy, and Uncube. He reviews classical music for the Montreal Gazette and was a 2013 Online Editor-in-Residence at Abitare. Lev studied architecture and art history at Yale University. In 2013 he was the first Canadian to receive a USC/Getty Arts Journalism Fellowship. He lives in Montreal and at: www.yesyesyes.ca
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