lesson 14: just keep playing

"Stop biting your nails. It's a bad habit."

"But I don't bite to the quick. Look!" she says as she holds her hands in front of her.

"Why do you do that? It's disgusting."

"Piano lessons."

"What does biting nails have to do with piano lessons. Oh! I know, you were taught by nuns that rapped your knuckles with rulers if your nails were too long. Oh how you suffered."

"No, but my teacher would clip my nails for me if they were. I hated that. So I used to bite them on the way to my lessons."

"Did you practice a lot?"

"Practice? Well probably not as much as I should have, but I did play around a lot. Just making up stuff."

"Did you have to do recitals and exams?"

"Oh my god yes. I hated them. I used to get sooo nervous. Before hand I would sit in the car and sob with anxiety."

"And you bit your nails?"

"No. That was only for just before piano lessons."

"Ew. I'm just picturing your spitty germy fingers all over the keys. So, when you were nervous, did you forget stuff, what you hadn't practiced."

"I didn't say that I never practiced. And no, I always did fine in the moment and got a little lost in the music. It was good. Actually, I think that I know what my lesson is..."

"Don't drag your spit covered, gnawed up finger nails all over someone else's piano keys?"

"No. It's about performance. The rule was, just keep going. Even if you make a mistake, just keep playing. Don't stop and panic and get stuck on the fact that you've just made a mistake. Make the audience fall in love with the music you love instead."

"You made lots of mistakes?"

"You know that I'm seriously considering a less belligerent fictional interviewer."

"You're very threatening."

"Don't make me delete you..."