Twixmas.....

Ahhh.... my favourite time of the year.  Those halcyon days between Christmas and New Year before the harsh reality of January rears its ugly head and there is still just enough festive cheer to temporarily head off the inevitable winter blues.

Lockdown Lite notwhithstanding, this festive season was always going to be more difficult.  Our first Christmas without our beloved Small Dog, who always loved every moment and threw herself wholeheartedly into everything the season has to offer.

It's also our first Christmas with cancer, and all the fear and uncertainty that brings.  PP's first treatment starts next week so we've been staying safe and minimising social contact.  The weather has been relentlessly wet and windy so we've been cosied up by the fire, eating our own bodyweight in turkey, ham and cheese.

Normally, in the Twixmas period I immerse myself in a miniature project, but as I'm working towards the Kensington Dollshouse Festival online showcase in February I'm doing something different this year.

Behold my Christmas present......

Now I know what you're thinking.  And to be fair, you're probably right.  But hear me out.

Cognitive decline.

There.  I've said it.   Taking up a new hobby is a good way of helping to halt cognitive decline. Ideally it should present a challenge, but it should also be fun.  

You will note the strategically placed headphones, which were also a Christmas gift.  These are to prevent my painfully slow, halting progress sending PP up the wall as only I can hear my repeated attempts to master the simplified version of Ode to Joy.  Beethoven is almost certainly spinning in his grave.  Although, as he was deaf, he would at least be spared my rendition of one of his most loved preludes.

I should come clean here and confess that, as a child, I endured took piano lessons for several years.  Once a week, an elderly gentleman, with a permanent drip on the end of his nose, came to our house and spent an hour teaching me to torture play our upright piano.  All of my mother's family were musical and in most of my aunt's and uncle's houses, there was a piano, so wherever the party ended up, there was always an instrument and someone who could play it.

I liked to sing, and could hold a tune, so it was assumed that like all the other Moores, I would be able to play piano.  It started off well enough.  Although it was a full sized piano and I was a pint-sized child.  I had to sit on a stack of books on the piano stool to reach the keys.  

My hands were (and still are) tiny, and couldn't span an octave.  It also didn't help that I'm left-handed, which made the twiddly bits melody more difficult to master.

I learnt scales, and the names of all the notes.  I could slowly and tortuously (with many tears and copious amounts of snot) translate the little black dots on the page into sounds, but with no fluidity, feeling or flair.   The tutor specialised in polkas and mazurkas (I think he was of Polish extraction) which are naturally light and happy pieces, with a bright and cheerful disposition.

My plodding playing reduced them to turgid dirges, peppered with bum notes and frequent false starts.  Also much muffled sobbing.  At the end of each lesson the keyboard had to be wiped down and I was released from my purgatory until the following week.  I did have to practice between lessons, but as our piano had no earphones, the whole family plus our unfortunate neighbours, were subjected to the cacophony and eventually I was judged to have no talent for the instrument and the lessons mercifully stopped.

Of course, over the years I have mourned the loss of that opportunity and wished that I had powered through the pain barrier.  I know that I can master challenging tasks requiring manual dexterity.  For example, I am a proficient touch typist, which requires the use of all my fingers, working independently, on 88 different keys.  Without looking.

I can create teeny, weeny, wee porcelain dolls from scratch which require a wide range of very delicate, precise, controlled movements.  In this instance my small hands are a definite advantage.

So I am returning to the fray.  Unlike my childhood self, I now have the determination and commitment to learn to play, at least to a reasonable standard, and produce recognisable tunes.  I've decided that I don't need to be able to sight read.  No point making it any harder than it needs to be.  So I've signed up to an online tuition course which uses patterns and chords..... apparently an unbelievable number of popular musicians use a similar method and can't actually read a note.

Who knew?! 

What is strange is that although I use my fingers every day, for typing, painting and sewing, after just a short practice session on the piano my hands end up like cramped claws.  It's obviously completely different types of movement and there's a definite time limit to the length of time I can play before I have to stop and allow my hands to slowly uncurl.

And the cognitive decline thing..... well there's a lot of memory stuff involved, plus doing several things at once.  So far it's going ok and I'm feeling the blossoming of a small sense of achievement.  The bite-sized chunks of practice are enjoyable and I feel I'm making progress. 

Sooooo......