Learning Keyboard

When I was very young, there was this demonic creature who used to visit our row of houses. Every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday of the week she would come by like clockwork with her stiff features and nasty temper. She also carried a cane with her. She would come into our house and make my sister and me practice on the keyboard for hours on end. If we made a little mistake, the cane would crack out. We were constantly terrified of her. And learning the keyboard was a fast and efficient exercise.

Now, almost two decades own the line, I walked past a mall only to see a real life learning keyboard for the first time in my life. You know what I am talking about right? A learning keyboard is a keyboard that lights up the keys as it plays. Confused? Well the only way you are likely to understand one is when you see it. A learning keyboard used to be a novelty. No longer. Nowadays, nearly every good mall or toy store has not just one, but a wide variety of learning keyboards. All of them have one common factor. These learning keyboards are electric, they light up in order to provide the learner with a visual reference and they all help one in learning keyboard playing.

I remember now, a little hazily perhaps, how a friend of mine had an imported learning keyboard in his house. While the rest of us laboured under the tutelage of the dreaded spinster who came to teach us how to use a keyboard to learn, he quite merrily, used his secret learning keyboard to amaze us with his playing prowess. And since some of the classics we practiced came pre programmed in the learning keyboard, he seemed to learn much faster and much better than the rest of us.

But there is one big flaw with the learning keyboard. Unless you know how to use your fingers in the first place, the learning keyboard is useless. Because anyone without a rudimentary grasp of the right finger technique, will be sorely tempted to follow the flashing lights in a bid to play along faster. And in enabling them to do so, the learning keyboard does them a great disservice.

I am speaking from experience here. I learnt to play the keyboard the hard way. And even today, although I don’t practice often, I can carry along a fairly good tune. But my friend with the imported learning keyboard? Well, after the novelty wore off, he could scarcely be bothered. So his learning keyboard was little more than a transition to other things. Needless to say, he can’t play to save his life.