Anyone who plays a musical instrument knows all about practicing. I myself have spent many unpleasant hours practicing the piano, and now I wish I had practiced more and payed more attention so that I could play without being terrified. I rehearse two hours a week with the bell choir, and sometimes I even “practice” at home. That’s quite an odd looking handbell mime, as we don’t have handbells at home, so I have to just pretend like I’m playing as I read through the hard parts on the music. Like air handbells.\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, the kids laugh at me.<\/p>\n
The kids are supposed to practice the piano every day, right? I’m pretty lax about it and don’t make them practice more than about 20 minutes a day (and they don’t always do every day, either), although I know they should probably practice for longer. I want them to be proficient so that they could play in church<\/a>, accompany for singing and just be comfortable playing the piano in front of people. I’ve told them that lessons are mandatory until they are 16 years old. And they have to play the piano, but if they want to do another instrument, they can choose.\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 Usually I like listening to them practicing. I can tell if they’ve finally gotten over a rough spot, and it’s fun to hear them improving.<\/p>\n There are times, however, when listening to them practicing is not quite so fun<\/a>. Take, for instance, when Natalie decides to practice at 7am on Sunday morning. My bed is almost directly over the piano, so I can hear it pretty well. And the song she chooses to start with? Reveille.<\/a> The only way it could have been more annoying would be to play it on a bugle! I don’t particularly love it when Cole blasts The Phantom of the Opera on the flute for the millionth time, but I try to go to a place farther away and just tough it out until he’s done (he doesn’t really know how to play softly).\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 Or when Cole played his latest song, “Variations on a Sea Chanty”, which is really just this song<\/a>. I really hate that song. I hate it even more than the horse with no name song<\/a>; which I hate.<\/p>\n Why is it that we come to hate songs? Ryan hates The Little Drummer Boy<\/a>. Par-ump-a-pum-pum. How can anyone hate a lovely Christmas song like that? Oh well, he just does. I’m not particularly fond of the overplayed sappy Christmas shoes song (and no, I’m not going to justify it with a link. So there!) My sister-in-law, Julene hates this song<\/a> by the beach boys. I’m not sure why, and I’m sure there’s a story behind it, but all I know is whenever I hear that song now, I just think, “Oh, Julene hates this song.” Funny, huh?<\/p>\n Well, the reason I hate the drunken sailor song stems back to my early days as a missionary for the LDS church in Duesseldorf, Germany. I had a companion who loved to sing. Nothing wrong with that, ladies and gentlemen, as I also love to sing. But she would get a song in her head and sing it endlessly<\/em> (or at least it seemed endless) while we were tracting. Between knocking on doors and hearing “Keine interesse! or Ich bin Katholisch und das reicht,” from grumpy German hausfrauen, I have to listen to this companion singing “What do we do with a drunken soldier….” ad nauseum. When she got bored with that, she translated it (poorly) into German, and would sing, “Was sollen wir tun mit ein betrunken soldatten …” (not knowing the real German word for soldier, she’d just make something up). God bless her and her enthusiasm, but now whenever I hear that song, my left eye begins to twitch and I have to Make. it. stop!<\/p>\n So, what are the songs you hate, and why?\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 Is there a story behind your hating that song, or do you just not like it?\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 Inquiring minds want to know.\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 I want to know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Anyone who plays a musical instrument knows all about practicing. I myself have spent many unpleasant hours practicing the piano, and now I wish I had practiced more and payed more attention so that I could play without being terrified. I rehearse two hours a week with the bell choir, and sometimes I even “practice” […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,6,2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paige.ericksonfamily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paige.ericksonfamily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paige.ericksonfamily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paige.ericksonfamily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paige.ericksonfamily.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/paige.ericksonfamily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paige.ericksonfamily.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paige.ericksonfamily.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paige.ericksonfamily.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}