Regrets I have a few !

There's a part of me that has become quite sentimental of late ... I guess it must be auld age tugging at my old heart strings or something ?

I don't suppose many of you will know this ,, perhaps not even my own children ? .,., but I was, once upon a time ,, many, many years ago ,, in a different life in fact ,, considered to be something of a "budding concert pianist" .,., ( that was a direct quote from the music teachers & examination boards I attended btw )

Yeah, I was ,, honest ! I actually played piano from the age of about 6 or 7 'till I was well into my teenage years ,,, Sat all sorts of piano forté exams, both theory and playing ,, reached a fairly high degree of competence and then .,.,.,.,., I don't know, found girls, golf, footie ,, something distracted me and I stopped going to my music teacher, stopped studying, and eventually stopped playing all together ! What an absolutely criminal waste.

In the past, maybe 10-years or so ,,, since my son also became quite an accomplished musician himself ( self taught guitar, sax, trumpet,) I have thought .,., time to take it up again !

I installed a "multi voiced, double keyboard organ" upstairs in our little spare bedroom where I also have my other computer etc ,,, the idea being that I WOULD get back to it .,., eventually !

Alas ,, I haven't ,,, YET !

This all hit me tonight again ,,,

a) when I watched the BBC Young Musician 2010 ( won incidentally by a brilliant young female pianist ) and then, later,,,

b) a televised Stevie Wonder concert ( I'm a long time fan ) and this concert was just sensational.

The whole episode started me remembering too, that my Dad ( a "heavy handed piano player" himself ) longed all his life to be an Orchestra Conductor ,, of all things !

He toiled most of his working life doing long, weary, dirty hard shifts as an engineer in the old Beardmore's Parkhead Forge in the days long before it became a shopping mall ! So to have such a dream seemed somehow incongruous to me .,., but now I think I'm beginning to finally understand. I once dreamt that I had won the Lotto and one of the first things I did with the cash was to arrange for him to conduct a full symphony orchestra ,,, sadly however neither of us got to fullfill that ambition .,.,

I wonder if it's a family failing or just the fear/ knowledge of the hours of practice that would be necessary .,.,., will I ever return to the keyboard ?