Before I began, allow me to introduce my history with music, as my past knowledge plays a large part in my currant piano journey.
When I was three years old, I asked for a violin for Christmas. Both my mom and dad were surprised by my random request, and wondered if there were violins featured in a movie I had watched. That Christmas I was gifted a Fisher Price violin that allowed me to fulfill my dreams ( you can check it out here if you wish). Flash forward to the age of five, the plastic, battery-powered toy wasn’t cutting it for me; I wanted the real thing. I craved to awaken sound by drawing my fiddle bow across the strings. I wrote in my schoolbook that “I want to feel the music inside the violin”. I was begging my parents so frequently, they caved in and got me a real one for Christmas in 2003. I quickly joined the Old Time Fiddlers in Williams Lake and became their youngest member at the age of six. As I worked my way up to jigs and reels, my mom played the piano with me and often needed help finding what key signature my tunes were in. Very quickly, I developed the ability to identify key signatures by ear, and shout out chords to my accompaniment.
To this day, I have maintained my love for music and let my musical passion bleed over into other musical realms. Learning to imitate sound, repeating the same notes while keeping within the same time signature, copying the proper technique of my mentors. In my current music course, as I journey through my Bed Program at the University of Victoria, I have made it my mission to learn how to read sheet music and play the piano. Learning by ear developed an auditory understanding of the elements of a musical piece, but no way to visually represent what I was hearing or playing. Choosing to learn how to read music will also teach myself how to write music as well; ultimately allowing my previously developed talent to be transferrable to others.
Sharing my learning progression is going to help me stay accountable, document my development, and allow others to look into my personal learning journey. So tune into my music blog, updated every week, to witness my first-hand account learning from scratch.