Piano.

I just knew this was going to happen. Now, as then, music majors are required to have a certain amount of piano training. Although I took three quarters of it in 1976 and 1977 I only earned a D for the first quarter, a C for the second, and I dropped out of the third. I hated learning the piano. It was utterly unlike any other kind of instrument I'd ever tried (voice, violin, flute, and guitar). You might not think it would be, but it was. I used to cry with frustration and boredom while practicing, and regularly humiliated myself in front of my classmates during our weekly recitals. Piano was right up there with math in terms of no natural ability and the necessity for sheer, brutal repetition and memorization. Consequently, I did badly, stopped taking it, and don't have anything like enough credits from my years at the U.W. to meet Wuthering Heights' piano requirement.

Oh lord, I'll be taking my first music course in 20 years, and a performance course at that. Luckily, it will be completely different from my previous experience. I may be no better at the piano than before, but they've changed the way it's taught. Now we all meet in a piano "lab" and have headphones and electronic keyboards. The teacher listens to each student by flipping a switch. No more public humilation or suffering through other beginners' mistakes. I will probably have more patience and more discipline this time around so I may not suck as much. The worst part will be relearning how to read a piano score.

The additional class means I'm not graduating in the spring. There's going to be a lot of practice associated with the piano class, so I'd better do it on its own in the fall (I'm taking the summer off). Instead, I'll take my ethnic history course and get the Dean of the business school to okay my taking two Adobe Photoshop classes as a substitute for the approved Computer and Office Technology course, Basic Computer Keyboards, which meets the (expletive deleted) Personal Development requirement. I believe I can prove conclusively that I have mastered all the computer skills necessary to take a course in computer graphics on a software program I've used for six years. I also have to sit for the English comprehension test so I can get out of Freshman Composition, but that's a one day test and I'll ace that.

So even though it adds a semester to my load I don't feel bad about the outcome of my meeting at all. It gives me an opportunity to redeem myself on the piano and make up for my only real failure in music school. I love second chances.

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