I was 11 when I asked my mum for piano lessons. We were in an economic crisis and she’d recently been ____1____ off. She said a polite “no”
That didn’t ____2____ me. I drew a keyboard onto a piece of paper and stuck it on my desk. I would ____3____ notes on an online keyboard and “play” them back on my paper one-keeping the sound they made on the computer in my head. I spent six months playing without ____4____ a real piano. As my mum found I was ____5____ about it, she bought me 10 lessons with borrowed money.
I still remember the first one. I was ____6____ by how organic the sound of the piano was, as I had become familiar with the ____7____ electronic sound. The teacher was trying to explain where middle C was, but I could ____8____ play all the major and minor scales.
I ____9____ my grade one after eight lessons and got distinction. By the time I started secondary school, we couldn’t ____10____ lessons again, so I returned to my paper keyboard. I passed grade three, then grade five, practising only on my piece of paper.
For the grades above that, there’s an ____11____ that you add a certain sensitivity into your playing. The music teacher at my school said I could practise on the school’s grand piano. I would wake up at 5:30 am to get there in time and play until lessons started. I’d ____12____ lunch and then practise after school until the caretaker kicked me out. At home, I’d have dinner, do three hours of revision and then ____13____ practice until 1:00 am.
My school didn’t offer music A-level. I found the Purcell School for young musicians. The audition (试镜)was extremely ____14____ , and I felt overwhelmed. To my amazement, I was offered a ____15____ .
I had been told I had started playing too ____16____ to reach conservatoire(音乐学院)level, but when I left Purcell, I was awarded the senior piano prize. That was the point when I realized I wasn’t behind everyone else. I am now at the Guildhall School in London, where I was offered a scholarship. I feel ____17____ :it’s been 10 years since I drew my paper piano and I’m at one of the world’s ____18____ conservatoires.
The irony is that I continue to do a lot of my practice away from the piano-what we call mental practice. It ____19____ key areas of the mind that are less readily accessed by piano playing alone. The paper piano helped stimulate my ____20____ about how music works.