Piano Competition

I walk into the piano store, not knowing what to expect. I see only a few other kids standing in line. I sit on one of the several piano seats in the store. A man comes up to my mom and I asking for our music. I give him my sheets of music and he says, “I’m sorry, but you can’t compete in the competition. You must have a book, not sheets. The judges are very strict about this. It’s not your fault, your teacher should’ve known this.” Of course I don’t blame my teacher. In fact I probably forgot what my teacher said about the competition. I still got to play in front of a judge and that made me happy.

As I sat on the small piano bench, I listened to all of the other people play. They were all 1 million times better than me. My mom said that they practice for 5 hours a day. You see, I only practice for 30 minutes and only on the weekends. In a way I’m lucky my mom doesn’t make me practice for 5 hours a day.

Finally, after the longest and most complicated piano song I’ve ever heard was over, it was my turn. I headed into the room. The room was fairly vacant. There were only a few chairs and at the end of a the room sat a piano in front of a sky back-round. I gave my judge my 3 sheets of music and shakily climbed up the very few steps. I sat at the piano hoping for nothing but a good performance and let my fingers fall onto the keys.

I played throughout my first song and hit accurate notes. There were only a few mistakes. Then came the next song. Still a little shaky from my first song, I played. Yet again I only made a few mistakes. I climbed down the stairs and my judge said, “That was short and sweet.”

That was it. That’s all he said. No advice or critiquing. I’m still not sure if that was a good sign or a bad sign, but all I know is that I did ok. I hope I get to be as advanced as the kids who played before me.

One thought on “Piano Competition

  1. I’m proud of you for performing, Nick. That takes courage! And it builds confidence. Keep up the good work. My son played piano for years (and still plays) not for the competition results, but for his love of music. It sounds like you love music.

    You have grown in your writing, and this is a very well-written narrative. You have sentence variety, effective choices in your paragraph breaks and transitions, and moments like this:

    “That was it. That’s all he said. No advice or critiquing. I’m still not sure if that was a good sign or a bad sign, but all I know is that I did ok.”

    Your use of several short sentences in a row reflect the abrupt end to your time before the judge, his short commentary, and the somewhat stunned feeling you must have come away with. Well done!

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