One day in 1980 I sat down at a piano and started to play. My friends looked at me and said, "I didn't know you could play the piano."
"Neither did I," was my reply.
For nearly 20 years I only played when no one else was around. In late 1999 I was encouraged by two friends to play publically. One is a well-known piano teacher in Baton Rouge and the other is a concert pianist. I agreed.
I stumbled across the C-Note Lounge on St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans in the beginning of 2001.
Then last year I was playing nightly at Tortorici's, a fine dining restaurant in the French Quarter. This year I'm at Schiros, Frenchy's and the Blue Nile. Plus, I've played at a dozen other bars, restaurants and coffee houses.
Much to my amazement people who listened to my music often mistake mine for Chopin, Mendelsohn, Schubert, Debussy and others classical and romantic composers. But unlike those guys, I just sat down at the piano one day and started playing, I had no idea I could play at all!
I never had a lesson, never practice, and yet it comes whooshing out of me fully formed, ready for your enjoyment.
I can't read or write music. I can't hear a tune and then play it. In fact, I seem to have some mental block against other people's music. I can't even play Happy Birthday! I don't know why.
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