Having a piano is no longer a big deal nowadays, nor is being able to play one.

    I have long been playing a piano. Whenever I feel like it, I can always sit relax at the piano, and let my fingers chasing around on the keyboard, turning notes on the score sheets into acoustic music. I play pieces from light classics from Richard Clayderman, to globally-knowns from Chopin. Good or bad, I simply enjoy the pleasure of reviving the scores.

    Until, a neighbor chimed in.

    I was happy to find that there are three of us in the building who can play an instrument on top of a flute, which all students are forced to learn and play throughout elementary and junior high. There is one who can play really well which I believe could be a teacher in the related field; another would be me, playing whatever I like (mostly the fast and the ones with magic power that draw me closer) and reject whatever I dismay; and the other, would be the neighbor, a new comer to the heaven of music. Rich made the ranking for us three, calling the "teacher-could-be" "A", me "B", and the newer, due to respect of the neighbor, "C".

    I'm not a talented pianist, as I've told you if you still remember. But I'm sure I'm someone who believes "Practice makes perfect". I underwent the basic materials from Beyer, Czerny, to Hanon, and Classic Piano Pieces. The only one I skipped is The Sonatinen. The reason is simple. The pursuit of my own happiness.

    Sunny is my mentor, teaching me to recognize all the notes and the meaning of all the symbols. After one year of the basic understanding of the piano scores, I was handed to a professional (e.g. a teacher, but not yet a master) for another year's training on the skills of playing a piano. Going through all these, I'm well acquainted with the bitterness and the sorrow of the progress of equipping one with the ability to play a such huge instrument. After those weekly assignments and the tears I've weeped, I now play whatever pleases my ears.

    And that's why I'm amazed by C, who skipped all the pain and sorrow that whoever plays a piano is supposed to experience, and plays WHATEVER I PLEASE.

    I didn't pay much attention to what C played at first, when C's music first appeared in the neighborhood. Then gradually, I found the music permeated through from the wall of a new direction. Again gradually, I found what I played was exactly what C was working on.