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Yesterday was my first public recital. It was put on by the music school where I've been taking lessons these last six months. Just me and 56 preteens!

The dress rehearsal was a riot. My girlfriend and I sat in the audience while the kids rehearsed. There were some real hams, and there was a handful of really good players. Those kids were really impressive.

I was third from last and got to spend a lot of time in the green room. They had juice boxes, sliced apples and string cheese for refreshments. I could have used a gin and tonic. One little violinist sat on her bow.

Anyway, my big moment soon arrived. I was given a rousing introduction and applause, and walked out attempting a Esa-Pekka Salonen stride.

I was to play Four Little Pieces by Daniel Gottlob Turk from a Denes Agay book of first classics. Each piece was eight bars. One of them is a very nice little piece called "Complaint", very quiet and slow, sort of nocturnish.

The first two pieces went perfect! Then "Complaint" didn't go so good. Don't know why, but I missed a couple of notes. But I kept going and just faked the rest.

That set up the last piece, which fell apart quickly. But I knew the gist of it and just faked the whole piece. It was in the key of G major, so I figured as long as it ended on a G it would sound fine. After all, it wasn't like anyone in the audience had ever heard of Turk, much less these pieces.

I finished up to great applause, and walked off stage. My teacher was very happy. "You can really improvise! You didn't freeze!" A couple of Moms backstage said they really liked those little pieces, so I fooled just about everybody.

Later, all the performers took the stage to receive our trophies. I got high fived by a couple of 10 year olds.

My girlfriend sat in the audience and had a great time, she said it was lots of fun and is looking forward to the next one. Since I was at the end, I should have sat out there with her a listened to the kids for awhile.

It was a lot of fun, and certainly something different. I'm a little sad that I blew the "Complaint" piece, I let the audience down. I'll definitely do another, and looking forward to improving. Maybe someday I'll be as good as the kindergartner who played "Dolls' Dream." (He was really good!)

That took a lot of courage to go out there and play with a bunch of little kids, and to improvise when your piece fell apart. Congratulations - you did very well.

That was a great story Gary. Congrats for going through with it.

Thanks, mom3gram, but it didn't take any courage. The only courage was on the part of the teachers rushing around trying to herd these kids.

It did prove that I've learned something these last few months about piano since the improvisation worked. I'm happy about that.

Congratulations...we all wish we could just "play through". How hard it is to not stop and want to start over! I am working on improvising also, but it's tough. Great job.

Way to go, Gary!

GregF

That was fun to read...thanks and Congrats!