🎹 Sep 2024 · Turned 30 last month. Bought a used digital piano off a neighbor who was moving. It came with a wobbly bench and a book of scales.
Learning piano at 30
📖 Sep 2024 · First lesson with Mrs. Okafor. She asked what I wanted to play someday. I said Clair de Lune. She smiled and handed me a five-finger exercise.
🖐️ Oct 2024 · Two weeks of nothing but C position. My left hand behaves like it belongs to someone else.
🎵 Oct 2024 · First actual song: Ode to Joy, one hand at a time. Played it eleven times in a row out of pure disbelief.
😤 Nov 2024 · Hands together is a scam. Each hand knows its part perfectly until they meet.
🌙 Nov 2024 · Discovered practicing at 10pm with headphones is the best part of my day. Twenty quiet minutes, just me and the metronome.
🎄 Dec 2024 · Played Jingle Bells for my family. My niece said it was 'pretty good for a beginner.' She is six. I'll take it.
❄️ Jan 2025 · New year, new habit: 25 minutes every morning before work. Missed only four days this month.
📚 Feb 2025 · Started Alfred's Adult Book 2. Dotted rhythms arrived and humbled me immediately.
🎼 Mar 2025 · First piece I genuinely love: a simplified Gymnopédie No.1. Slow enough that I can think, beautiful enough that I don't want to stop.
😩 Apr 2025 · Hit the plateau everyone warned me about. Same mistakes, same bars, every day for three weeks.
💡 May 2025 · Breakthrough came from slowing down. Half tempo, hands separate, five perfect repetitions before speeding up. Boring works.
🎹 Jun 2025 · Mrs. Okafor assigned Für Elise — the real one, not simplified. The famous part is easy. Nobody warns you about the middle section.
🏖️ Jul 2025 · Vacation week with no piano. Caught myself practicing fingerings on the airplane tray table.
🎵 Aug 2025 · Für Elise, first section memorized. Played it at a friend's house party on a terrible keyboard. Applause. Possibly out of politeness. Still counts.
📈 Sep 2025 · One year of piano. Can now sight-read simple pieces slowly. My teenage self who quit guitar after three weeks would not believe this.
🍂 Oct 2025 · The middle section of Für Elise finally clicked after six weeks. The trick was practicing just the left-hand jumps, forty times a day.
🎃 Nov 2025 · Recital announcement: Mrs. Okafor's students play in December. Adults included. My stomach dropped reading the email.
😰 Dec 2025 · Recital day. Hands shaking, played too fast, missed two notes and kept going — which she said was the real skill. A nine-year-old played Chopin after me.
🎁 Dec 2025 · My partner gave me the Clair de Lune sheet music for Christmas. 'For someday,' the card said.
❄️ Jan 2026 · Started scales in earnest — all twelve major keys, circle of fifths. Meditative once you stop fighting them.
🎼 Feb 2026 · First attempt at the opening of Clair de Lune. Those stacked thirds are harder than they sound. Someday is not today, but it's closer.
🌸 Mar 2026 · Learned I've been holding tension in my shoulders for a year and a half. Relearning how to sit. Piano is mostly posture, apparently.
🎵 Apr 2026 · Clair de Lune, first page, slowly and with pedal. Recorded it on my phone and listened back three times. It sounds like actual music.
☀️ May 2026 · Played for my grandmother on her 85th birthday — Gymnopédie, her request. She closed her eyes the whole time. Best audience I'll ever have.
🎹 Jun 2026 · Twenty-one months in. Current goal: full Clair de Lune by my 32nd birthday. The wobbly bench is still wobbly. I'm keeping it.