Just a little flat

I like to play the piano, and I've pretty much reached the point where I can sight-read most anything. Hymns and primary songs come especially easy to me because...well, they're not that hard.

But today in seminary, Brother Harris asked me to play a couple songs. I played the first one fine, didn't make any mistakes. It probably had a sharp or two. However, the second song had three flats and some arpeggios in the left hand, and for some reason I just freaked out. I could not play it, and there were only three flats. I am used to playing things with up to six flats! But for some reason I could not do it.

Flats have always been hard for me. It's just hard for me to think of notes as flat. I'm sure it's all in my head, because as my grandma always says, "It's not any harder to press a black key than it is to press a white key." She's right, it's not physically hard.

When you've got flats and fast moving notes combined, it's hard to think that fast and realize what keys you're supposed to be playing. I just get scared and tell myself it's hard, so it becomes hard. It really isn't that bad though. It's easy to press a black key.

The best thing for me to do is practice a lot so my fingers get the feel of which notes are flat. It's like learning how to type, except the feel changes with each piece of music. Why do people write music with flats?! Oh well. I will just have to work harder at piano. (But guess what? On Saturday I got my 60 point gold cup! It's huge!)