My First Piano Recital (a Narrative)
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Mrs. *********
Honors English 9
May 6, 2010
My First Piano Recital
I started piano lessons at the age of four and a half. That is a very young age to start! My teacher was Ms. Crossman; we had a lesson every week. One day, sometime after my fifth birthday, she told me that when you take piano lessons, you have to play at a piano recital. I didn’t even know what a piano recital was! Ms. Crossman explained to me how everybody’s relatives and friends come to the middle school and watch us play one song that we’ve worked particularly hard on. It didn’t sound too difficult, but I was still a little nervous. The first thing I had to do was pick out a song. I had many potential songs in mind, but I was a very indecisive person, especially since I was five! I played the prospective songs over and over again until I finally chose one: On the Good Ship Lollipop. I was extremely determined to be the best one at the recital, even though it wasn’t a competition and there would be high school seniors playing there, too! I practiced every free minute I had of every day until my fingers ached and my dad was yelling at me to give it a rest. Anything less than perfection was unacceptable. When the day of the recital came, I was ‘nervcited’: a perfectly even mixture of nervousness and excitement. I walked into the middle school and saw that the people who were playing piano had to sit in the first two rows of seats. Each seat had a name on it in alphabetical order. My teacher came on stage and began the show with a funny introduction to the first act. By the third act, I was sick of waiting! It was nerve-wracking to watch the others play, and sometimes mess up. When Ms. Crossman finally called my name, I thought I was going to puke! I timidly walked down the aisle and up to the piano on the stage.
As I started to play, the anxiety seemed to melt off me like creamy butter on a hot skillet at a fourth of July celebration in the Sahara Desert! I forgot about
Mrs. *********
Honors English 9
May 6, 2010
My First Piano Recital
I started piano lessons at the age of four and a half. That is a very young age to start! My teacher was Ms. Crossman; we had a lesson every week. One day, sometime after my fifth birthday, she told me that when you take piano lessons, you have to play at a piano recital. I didn’t even know what a piano recital was! Ms. Crossman explained to me how everybody’s relatives and friends come to the middle school and watch us play one song that we’ve worked particularly hard on. It didn’t sound too difficult, but I was still a little nervous. The first thing I had to do was pick out a song. I had many potential songs in mind, but I was a very indecisive person, especially since I was five! I played the prospective songs over and over again until I finally chose one: On the Good Ship Lollipop. I was extremely determined to be the best one at the recital, even though it wasn’t a competition and there would be high school seniors playing there, too! I practiced every free minute I had of every day until my fingers ached and my dad was yelling at me to give it a rest. Anything less than perfection was unacceptable. When the day of the recital came, I was ‘nervcited’: a perfectly even mixture of nervousness and excitement. I walked into the middle school and saw that the people who were playing piano had to sit in the first two rows of seats. Each seat had a name on it in alphabetical order. My teacher came on stage and began the show with a funny introduction to the first act. By the third act, I was sick of waiting! It was nerve-wracking to watch the others play, and sometimes mess up. When Ms. Crossman finally called my name, I thought I was going to puke! I timidly walked down the aisle and up to the piano on the stage.
As I started to play, the anxiety seemed to melt off me like creamy butter on a hot skillet at a fourth of July celebration in the Sahara Desert! I forgot about