avatarMichael Burg, MD (Satire Sommelier) 😬

Summary

The author reflects on a personal regret of not learning to play a musical instrument despite a musically rich upbringing and is considering taking up music lessons again.

Abstract

The author shares a personal story about growing up in a household filled with music, where both parents and siblings were deeply engaged with various musical instruments and genres. Despite being encouraged and having access to drum, piano, and guitar lessons, the author consistently avoided practicing and thus never learned to play an instrument. This lack of musical skill has been a source of regret throughout the author's life. However, with the availability of online resources and YouTube tutorials, the author is now motivated to revisit the idea of learning to play music, placing it on their "to-do" list as a step towards potentially resolving this long-standing regret.

Opinions

  • The author acknowledges a missed opportunity in not taking advantage of the musical environment and encouragement they received

Leaving Something Behind … Regrets

Thankfully, I’ve only got a couple

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

I’ll tell you about one.

Music surrounded me as I grew up. My father sawed away at the violin, badly, “screechily,” but passionately. Mom always listened to music — ballet music, the classics, Herb Alpert and the TJB, big bands, everything, always. My siblings and I had bins of albums — Beatles, Stones, Beach Boys, Herman’s Hermits, tons more.

I was encouraged to play. Drum, piano and guitar lessons all came my way, always. Just as constantly, determinedly in fact, I dodged them. Never finding the time to practice enough to be anything but frustrated by my lack of progress. What a surprise huh?

I never learned to play, anything.

Regret about that fills me to this day.

But, I can now get a keyboard and take some lessons online or via YouTube, easily. It’s on my “to-do” list. Regrets … undone? We’ll see.

The story above is prompted by Lucy Dan 蛋小姐 (she/her/她)’s excellent prompt, found here. Thank you Lucy.

Writing
Writing Prompts
Music
Regret
Life
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