There are three pedals at the bottom of our piano. I know that one of them muffles the sound of the piano. We have this on at all times as we live in a semi-detached home, albeit one with thick walls, and we don’t want to bug our neighbour with our practice.

Some people would love to live next to piano wizard, Lang Lang. However, we are Clang Clang, and no one wants to live next door to that.

But I have no idea what the other two pedals do. One seems to make the piano sound echo-ey. I call it the Ghost Pedal as it makes the piano sound haunter.

The other one does…. nothing. I press it. Nothing. It doesn’t muffle. It’s doesn’t try and scare me. Nothing.

I could google the answer but it seems more fun to try and work it out myself, like it’s a rite of passage for all piano players. Until you work it out, you can’t call yourself a musician. And looking up the answer would just be cheating.

I’ve been watching a a lot of videos about learning to play the piano and this one, ahem, struck a chord.

As I’m following the Simply Piano app, I’ve not thought a lot about timing. 

1… 2… 3… 4

1……. 2…… 3

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Part of not thinking about timing is that I’m both not fast and too fast. I’m not fast, as I try and play pieces and can’t change between chords as fast as shown on the screen. I’m also too fast as when I practice on my own, I try and play as fast as I can rather than going slower and learning better technique.

I need to slow down to speed up.

Our piano is in the hall beside the living room. If I’m playing, I keep the living room door open so I can keep an eye on little three year old Wee TwinBikeRun when she watches her cartoons. However, in the last few days, every time I sit down to play, about five minutes after starting, she comes out of the living room, stares at me and then holds her hand our to take my hand. She then pulls me into the living room.

I may not be as melodic as I thought. Even a 3 year old is a critic!

Imagine singing a song but only learning every second word.

“Take… Down… The… Paradise… Where…. Grass…Green….. The…. Are Pretty”

Now try and play it on the piano with the missing music too.

That’s Simply Piano.

Which sounds like a complaint, and it is, but I can see it’s also necessary. The app teaches the piano by playing along with songs. However the songs are complex so it simplifies the songs so you only play along with parts of it. It’s just enough to know the song but, because it’s simplified, I can filling in the missing notes in my head and think I’m missing out on playing some keys.

On the other hand, as I move through the lessons, you come back to the same songs and gradually learn how to play more complex versions of it, which helps show how you’re improving.

But it is frustrating as I want to be better than the programme will let me. And that’s probably a good thing as it’s forcing me to learn the basic techniques and to practice those before doing anything more complicated.

Some useful video channels I’ve watched:

And the more useful:

For sheer enthusiasm:

I watched Gattaca last night, a 90s sci-fi film about genetic engineering. At one point, the main characters attend a piano concert and find out the pianist has six fingers. “It’s the only way he can play this song” says one character to the other. I know how that feels…

On a music sheet there is a number to help you know which finger to use when playing a note. The numbers run from 1 to 5 with 1 being your thumb and each number, a finger. So far so simple. If the music sheet shows a C and 1 then you know where to place your hand.

The only problem with this numbering is that 5 can mean not just the fifth note but the sixth note too. For a pianist, 5 can also mean 6 and the only way to know this is to read the note and spot whether it’s a G (5) or A (also 5 but really a 6).

Why not just call it 6? We may not have 6 fingers but at least we’d then be able to move our hands, or stretch a wee pinky to reach it. Calling two notes the same number (5) just leads to confusion. Let’s just call it 6.

Other than that, I’m starting to understand how read sheet music and can now recognise a handful of simple notes and how to play them.

Mrs TwinBikeRun is also learning the piano. She’s using the app – Simply Piano – and I can hear her playing along to John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’.

I say “play along” but at beginners level it’s more about playing the occasional key in time with the music rather than playing the song itself.

“If John Lennon could imagine what you are playing he’s be having nightmares,” I say helpfully.

Already, after three days, I can see our playing styles are diverging. While we both started with the app, I’m quite happy to learn a few keys and then play my own tunes on the piano. (And by tunes, I mean ‘noise’). Mrs TwinBikeRun on the other hand, will only play from the app. She’s already ahead of me in the lessons as she works her way through the initial steps.

We’ve also opted for different lessons. After tying the essential skills, learning about how to read some musical notes and where to put your fingers on the keyboard, the lessons split into more essential skills, or an initial look at chords. I chose chords. Mrs Twinbikerun continues with the essential skills.

So, while she at least is learning how to play songs, I’m learning how to play along to songs by using C, D, E and G cords with my right hand.

At some point I assume the app will make us use our left hand but not yet.

I wonder what to do with it in the meantime. Keep it on my lap. Hold a candle in the air. Rest it on the keys? The app doesn’t say.

I rest it on the keys and try to play along but I don’t know what I’m doing as Mrs TwinBikeRun says “If John Lennon could hear you play, he’d be glad that he’s dead!”

I have an app: Simply Piano. It’s American. I can tell it’s American because it keeps telling me to play along with Maroon 5, a band so bland it could be used to paint hallways.

When it’s not telling me to Move Like Jagger it’s also asking me to play Ode To Joy, which at least has a memorable tune. Unlike Maroon 5 who only have a tune if they buy cough sweets.

The good thing about the app is that it mixes playing with showing you how to read music. And Ode to Joy is the first song it provides in sheet music form.

Except I don’t think it’s right. There is one note that doesn’t sound right to me so I play a different one instead.

It’s only day one and already I’m not following my lessons. I’ve rejected technique and musical theory and I’m playing my own songs. Is this how Maroon 5 started? They knew what to do but they started to play their own stuff and eventually they produced the musical equivalent of greek yoghurt and it was too late for good taste. Was I destined to go down the same road?

Perhaps. But given I only know five keys on the keyboard and I can’t use my left hand, the only Jagger I move like is Chris Jagger, Mick’s brother.

There are some things in life that are impossible to buy. Like household bleach. Or car insurance. Or wine. You know that different products do different things but you have no idea what and just go for the second lowest price instead.

Of course, manufacturers and restaurants know this. They know you avoid the cheapest on the basis that it must have cut some corners to get to the price. The bleach doesn’t clean. The wine is vinegar. The insurance only covers you during a full moon. So they deliberately make the second cheapest product the most profitable for them. And you should buy the third cheapest instead, which restaurants also know. So you should buy the fourth cheapest and, by this point, you might as well buy the most expensive as at least then you won’t feel cheated.

Which is a long way of saying that no one knows anything about a lot of things and you might as well get the cheapest one.

For this year’s 30 day challenge I wanted to try a non-physical challenge. Two years ago, I tried to exercise every day. Last year I tried to stretch. This year I wanted to try a new skill and playing the piano was the first one that came to mind.

But first I needed a piano.

And where to buy a piano? Well, the piano shop of course! (Once I googled and found there was such a thing in Glasgow: McLarens Piano Shop).

The only problem. I had no idea how to buy a piano. What do you look for? What makes a good one? Every guide I checked on the internet talked about how it would feel and how it would sound. But given I’m just starting I had no idea what it should feel like or how it should sound. Instead I asked McLaren’s: how you pick one? And they said “how much do you want to spend? Second hand pianos are cheaper”. Which was a fair (if direct) question. Once I said a second hand piano was okay and how much I wanted to spend, they then showed me three pianos and played a song on each one. Which one do you like the sound of, they asked? One sounds ‘better’ than the others. And do you want a brown or a black one? And with those three questions I picked one.

Picking a piano was more like choosing wine than I thought. Pick a colour. Pick a price.

It was only after I left the shop did I think they may have played deliberately better on one piano than the others to influence my choice.

“Haha!” They said: “We’ll get rid of this one to the fool with no ears!”

A credit card later and I was now the proud owner of a piano.

“We’ll throw in the stool for free,” they said. Which was nice as I hadn’t thought to ask about how I would sit to play it. A piano stool, of course. A good thing they did ask as otherwise I might have been playing standing up like 1970s Elton John.

I wonder if they also supply a mountain of cocaine, just like 70s Elton John too?!?

For the second year in a row, I set myself the goal of reading a book every two weeks, which I did, but I have to admit that this year, I cheated. I listened to a book. I didn’t read it with my eyes. I used my ears, and walking the dog and commuting to work to listen to my first audio book. And the experience was… sad…

But not in comparison to the best book I read this year – Show Me The Bodies by Peter App. A thorough and devastating report on the Grenfell tragedy. This was a book that was impossible to read without wanting to see everyone involved in a prison cell. While the inquiry’s report is not due until late next year at the earliest, this is essential reading to find out how simple decisions can have tragic consequences.

Which is just like my choice to listen to an audiobook…

I hadn’t realised that Spotify now had books and, when I did, I thought I’d listen to Matthew Perry’s autobiography as I thought his story would be better heard with his delivery rather than read with the intonation of Chandler Bing in my head. What I wasn’t prepared for, even though I knew the book was about his addictions and not his time on Friends, was just how bad his addictions had been – and how every page was a warning to never take Oxycontin. By the time he was on his umpteenth rehab and listing in detail the effect of various painkillers, I was promising myself I would never even take an Aspirin again, in case I spiralled.

Best fiction book I read this year was ‘In Ascension’ by Martin McGuiness, an ultra serious sci-fi with what turns out to be a very dumb/clever pun for a title. You’ve got to admire anyone who’ll write 300 pages on single cell organisms, diving, botany and the complete list of items on the Voyager spacecraft just to write a titl= that could have been written by Tim Vine.

Most enjoyable book goes to ‘The Blade Itself’ by Joe Abercrombie for fiction and ‘The Last Action Heroes’ by Nick De Semlyn for non-fiction. Most annoying book goes to ‘1923’ by New Boulting, a book about the search to find out more about a one minute film clip from the 1923 Tour de France. Some may find it’s digressions to be enriching as they add context to even the slightest action in the film, others, me included, might think that the digressions are nothing but filler because a one minute clip of the Tour de France doesn’t justify 250 pages. And most thrilling goes to two zombie thrillers: The Girl With All The Gifts and The Boy on The Bridge.