I am going to play the piano. Even if it kills me.

At the age of ten, I told my parents I would no longer take piano lessons. It was my first serious strike against adult authority. Over sixty years later they are in heaven, but laughing while I stare befuddled and bewildered at the 88 keys before me.

While I never learned more than the basic scale, mom and dad still felt I was worthy to receive their monstrous stand up grand piano when they vacated their home. It was a Willis model V: huge, bigger than a diesel engine, a massive structure of lacquered maple, mahogany veneer, spruce, mirror, steel, copper strings with ebony and ivory keys. The behemoth was so heavy that it actually cracked the tiles in our townhome when it was rolled over the transom.

And here, more than sixty years later, the piano takes its place in our family room, an unflinching protective barrier against nuclear attacks and continental drift.

I often thrilled at the opening keyboard riffs of popular songs. Saturday In The Park (Chicago), Stuck With You (Huey Lewis), Hill Street Blues (Mike Post)…these pieces were introduced to our ears, thirsty for memorable intros that once heard, never left us. I took it as a simple challenge to learn those riffs. And I did. Then, I could sit at any piano, and pound out the beginning notes to these iconic songs. The trouble was, my audience, stunned by my virtuoso renderings asked for more. I always had to choke, and confess, “That’s all I know, just the intro.” Groans and dismissive shrugs were their responses.

So when I retired, I decided to return to the keys, and start anew.

Over the past ten years I have downloaded several dozen songs for which there are reasonably decipherable musical score. While I plunked away at a few pieces, I was happily involved in other leisure activities. So the initiative was dampened over time.

But with the coming of COVID, time was on my side, and I renewed my attempts. It was only then that I discovered a new factor in learning to play. My brain does not necessarily connect. I have sat at the keyboard, literally for hours and worked through a simple piece, reading from score, translating to scale letters, and then picking the right key.

I likened it to translating from English to Arabic via Japanese. Start. Finish. Repeat. Over and over. While I can imagine the right sounds, the recall is gone. So what should take a ten-year-old a week to master, I struggle after a month of intense focus to eke out a recognizable rendition at half speed.

Still, I continue. I have now conquered two tunes. City of Stars (LaLa Land), and All I Ask (Phantom of the Opera). Both are simple constructions, and I have memorized them. The performance is still cringeworthy to any listener, as they wait hopefully for the next note, hesitantly offered by my uncooperative left and right hands.

Another factor I have discovered is the value of practice. After probably a 200 hours of struggle, I am now able to link musical score, note by note, to keyboard. I am learning! But even as I do that, my eyes are lighting off distress flares. It dawned on me yesterday that the constant shifting between the printed sheet of score and the keyboard is tough on the eyes. Graduated bifocals do not help!

Through this musical epiphany I have also made an additional discovery of the sales slip for our 600-pound furniture piece.

The piano, an upright Willis (1884-1967), was made in Montreal, and purchased by my mother on credit in 1949. She got it, used, for $350: $200 down, with $14 monthly payments on the balance. Conservatively, the piano is nearly a hundred years old.

I point this out because its tone is bold and clear, and still in tune. It is far more impressive than the late model Casio electric piano which I also practice on in the back room.

While the Casio offers countless digital features for enhancing my play, the aged Willis responds like a thankful, professional artist, giving full-bodied resonance to every note, no matter how badly I stumble through a piece.

I am still learning the notes and the keys, and my progress is enough that I am encouraged to grab a seat at the piano any time I have a chance.

If you have youngsters about, sit them down at the piano. I am making up for lost time!