My First Piano Lesson of the Year

I nervously entered my piano teacher's house. My knees shook. I hadn't had a piano lesson for ages because of the long summer holidays. Would I have done enough practise? Would she say I had gone backwards?

"Hello!" my teacher said smiling at me and Charlotte. "Who will have the first lesson?" I didn't know if I wanted to get it over and done with or leave it as long as possible. Luckily I didn't have to choose.

"I think I will teach you first, Sophie," Christine decided. I took a deep breath and followed her into the music room.

I started on my scales, being very careful to get them all right. Christine tapped her fingers to help me keep the same pace. A few times she made me repeat a scale until I got it perfect.

Once I was finished with my scales I started on my exam pieces. My forehead furrowed in concentration. Imogen had helped me out with one of them over the holidays, so I wasn't really worried about it, but the others I had been practising on my own.

"That was really nice," Christine said as I finished one of my pieces. "I can tell you really enjoy that piece."

I sighed with relief. I did enjoy it a lot. It is really fun to play.

When my lesson was finished, I walked out and grinned at Charlotte. She smiled at me and walked into the music room for her lesson. I settled down on the sofa with my book to wait.

Later Christine walked us to the front door. We said goodbye and rushed over to the car where Mum and Imogen were waiting to pick us up.

"How did it go?" Mum asked.

"Great!" I said.

"Christine said we did wonderfully," Charlotte agreed.

The grin didn't leave my face the whole way home. I was so happy.

Xylophone

Gemma-Rose playing the xylophone.

We have a xylophone. None of us can play it properly, but when I was little I used to pretend I could.

The xylophone sat in the study and the only person who ever even thought about it was me. I would pick it up and sit on the floor with it. I would hit it with the sticks making an awful racket. I don't think anyone liked me playing the xylophone.

When Gemma-Rose was a bit older she too wanted to play the xylophone. I gave her one of the sticks and we made even more noise than ever.

Then after ages of playing the xylophone, one of the sticks broke while we were playing it. I was most upset.

Dad soon fixed it with a bit of super glue and it was as good as new. He gave it back to us with instructions to be more careful with it.

Again we had a lot of fun with the xylophone, but then the stick broke again. Dad was too busy to fix it and so we put away the xylophone and our fun.

One of these days I am going to find that broken stick and get someone to fix it so Gemma-Rose and I can have some more fun. It is not half as much fun to play the xylophone on your own with only one stick.

Perhaps we should learn to play the xylophone properly, then everyone will stop saying, "Don't make such a racket! Stop that noise!"

Do you have a xylophone? Can you play it?