I've made a decision

Which will haunt me all week

When I turned 60, I decided to return to learning to play the piano and started taking weekly lessons. It was tough, but I stuck at it and eventually worked my way up to passing ABRSM Grade 4 in both playing, and music theory.

A few weeks ago I turned 70, so had been learning for a decade. I still have not really mastered my piano, and as each lesson approached, my anxiety grew as did the feeling that perhaps I am just not cut out to be a musician.

This morning I emailed my piano teacher to say I’m taking a break, at least until the end of the year, to focus all of my attention on my writing. I won’t touch the keys for at least a week, then will start to work on one or two pieces, for example Arvo Part’s Spiegel im Spiegel until I can confidently play them.

I know what I have to do, the barriers I have to cross, and the bad habits I need to break, and without the urgency of a looming lesson, paradoxically believe I will make some progress, before I return to Saxmundham in 2026 and impress the piano teacher who has become a friend.

But perhaps most importantly of all, I have learned that in this my eighth decade, I am going to do set my own agenda, spend my time as I want to spend it and continue to write non-fiction books, each of which will be better than the one before.