1.6 The Song Sheets

Yes, we were poor.
But we were not under-privileged to say the least.
By the time I was eight and Ti was six,
They bought us a brand new upright piano.

Piano lessons were expensive,
So each week,
When we paid a visit to our italian teacher,
Mr. Cruz.
He needed to pass us,
On each song sheet,
At each lesson,
We passed,
That saved us from the belt.
And a whole lot of crying and pleading.

Ti had mechanically light fingers,
Where I had soft fingers.
She excelled in her fast paced allegros.
Teased me with her staccatos,
While stoically, effortlessly,
Maintained composure.

My hands, on the other hand moved
To a slower pace,
So I leveraged the only thing I had,
My feelings, the emotions from within.

By the time we reached grade one,
Of our Royal Conservatory  Music book,
The song sheets were more complicated.
We were expected to play by hart,
To play from our memories.

We were never told,
That it would have taken one year,
To perfect five to six chosen song sheet,
Before we are to enter into our grade one examination.

As usual,
We frantically practiced,
An hour, Two hours a day,
Hoping for our teacher to pass us,
At each lesson,
On to the next song sheet.

By the sixth song,
Of the grade one royal conservatory music book,
He stopped giving us new songs.
We were in a hell of a lot of trouble!
We pleated to him to give us more songs.

After a few belting, pleading and crying episodes,
It all came out,
Mr. Cruz explained to father that,
We no longer needed new songs,
As we were to take our first piano examination with months.