I never had an ear for music. My grandfather, and now Teddy, tell me I am tone deaf. They may be right, but that doesn’t stop me from enjoying listening to music, singing (bad) karaoke with my (very) close friends, and since December; learning piano.
I never learned any instruments as a kid. We did the recorder at school, but luckily only for a short time. I tried my hands at guitar but after spending 30 minutes trying to tune it and then failing at getting my fingers into the seemingly impossible positions described in the ‘guitar for beginners’ book, I put the guitar back in the closet where I found it.
Last year I saw a sign advertising trial lessons for piano at a local bookstore. For weeks I went past, reading it again and again, wondering, thinking. I could maybe? But my courage would always fail me. Until one day in November; I had made up my mind. I marched to the bookstore while making up all the possible scenarios on how the conversation would go in my head. I entered the store and went straight to-
the magazines. I am so bad at talking to and reaching out to strangers that I had to recharge after using all my energy on just getting to and into the bookstore. I circled around a bit, looking but not really looking at the different covers before I squared my shoulders and went to the register where an older man was working.
After stammering out in nervous Japanese about the sign and wanting to try, he tells me to hold on and goes to find the piano teacher that was holding a piano lesson in the back room of the bookstore. Great, I have to redo all I just did to another person. The teacher was lovely though, and we set a date for the trial lesson.
The trial lesson went great, and I’ve been going every Sunday for about 6 months. While I do not have any aspirations to be a great pianist, and while I might still be tone deaf, it’s a great pastime which I very much enjoy.
Diary of a Norwegian in Japan 