This Conversation Seems Like A Dream

My fingers itch.

I hated admitting this when I was younger, and was still uncomfortable with it in a lot of company for many years later, but...

I took eight years of accordion lessons as a kid. Yeah, shut up. :) I was really damn good at it, actually, and as much as I might have resented the choice of instruments at first, I really grew to love it. It wasn't cool, and when I was fifteen or so, I was told that I could stop taking accordion, but I *had* to be taking lessons of some sort, so I started playing the guitar. As it turned out, and hardly a surprise, I'm sure...I was a really crappy guitar player. :)

I figure most people probably think of polkas and Weird Al when they think about accordions--or they think about one of Pepsi's latest commercials, wherein a young Jimi Hendrix is deciding between Coke and Pepsi. He ends up choosing Pepsi, naturally, and happens to catch sight of a guitar above the machine. Across the street by the Coke machine is an accordion store. And there's always the ever-amusing 'Play an accordion, go to jail' stickers that I've seen here and there.

Thing is...it's an incredibly versatile instrument, and there's much more that can be done with it than just polka-type music. Sure, maybe it's *good* for that, but...okay. When I took lessons, I had both individual and band lessons, and the band was GOOD. They travelled to Disneyland every year for competition. They played the 1812 Overture as a performance piece in every recital they had, and it was just fucking amazing.

The best part, for me, was knowing a piece so well that I could rest my head on the case, close my eyes, and just *play*. I'm sure that every person has had moments like that, when you're just in the zone, whether it's as a writer, as an artist, as a comedian, as a musician, whatever. You just *play*, the notes come off your fingers like gossamer, there's never a wrong note, and every bit of who you are is in that one piece. One of my favorite pieces to play was always Sunrise, Sunset from Fiddler on the Roof.

Sometimes, and it's happening more frequently lately, my hands just *itch* with wanting to play again, even if I had to start over with a new instrument. I know there's no way I could immediately pick right up where I left off and be able to get moments like that again right away, but I just...wow. It hits me hard, sometimes.

Posted by Liz at March 24, 2004 08:23 AM