Communities with pianos
Does anyone else ever contemplate imaginary statistical scenarios? Like "I wonder how many other people in the world are listening to exactly the same song as I listen to right now”? Or "what would it look like if you could see a birds eye view of where all the people who live in my street are right now"...
Being a piano teacher, my favourite musing is usually to do with "how many PianoEasy players are playing the piano right now?".
I know there are a lot. From about thirty years of teaching here in Fremantle I have had the pleasure of running into many old students who still love their playing. Only this morning I listened to a beautiful Soundcloud recording on Facebook from a guy who now lives in Denmark. He learned with me when he was a young boy and I was still teaching from Fremantle Primary School. Another player send me the track of Stella Donnelly’s latest hit, that he plays the keyboard on. I have walked the streets of Fremantle and heard songs I composed emanating from houses where I don’t even know who lives there. For that matter, there are three teachers in walking distance from my house that now teach my PianoEasy program.
Since I have launched my online program this question has become even more fun. I know there are now people in America, in Spain, in England and in China who are learning the piano with us here in Fremantle.
I have had people I had never seen before come up to me saying "Are you Anneka? I am doing your online program and I'm absolutely obsessed with your arrangement of Canon In D at the moment". When I recently tried out a new hairdresser in East Freo and mentioned that I was a piano teacher, he answered “I know; you are MY piano teacher”.
There is an administrative page on my www.PianoEasy.online website that actually shows me the names of the last ten people who have been working with my online lessons. (Actually, there are three such pages; one for my Kids program, one for my Adults and Teenagers program and one for my Teachers program.) I LOVE THOSE PAGES! On rainy days like today, when South Beach is quiet and many of the coffee shops look a bit deserted you might be wondering what everyone is up to. It might make you feel warm knowing that all over Fremantle, PianoEasy players are huddled behind their pianos, learning some jazz or Bach or a pop song or improvising.
Playing piano has benefits for our social and physical wellbeing and mental health far beyond what science has already demonstrated. My favourite mental image is that reverberations of one piano being played to another piano being played in the next street meet and cover our beautiful town in a virtual net of musical vibrations and goodness...
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