(diaryland) September 14, 2011 - 11:42 a.m.

On the weekend I accompanied Daniel in a long-arse concerto in an Eisteddfod in Traralgon.

That last bit probably sounds like a foreign language sentence. Traralgon is in the middle of nowhere. In a good way.

The Eisteddfod had about 5 people in three sections. The same people won again and again. I was accompanying a guy who had been learning his instrument for about three years, so yeah. We didn't win anything. But good effort, though. Good effort. He was playing against uni students.

There was this accompanist there who played so many damn pieces for the competitors. I don't even know how you learn so much shit. Yes, many of the pieces were old standards that everyone pulls out every year like Brahms and Mozart and all that, but still.

Im a slow learner. One 20-min piece was enough for me.

So I was feeling kinda inadequate. I read the judge's report on our performance but it didn't mention me. Daniel got a good mark and everything and it's not supposed to be about the accompanist but I was just hoping for a 'good sense of ensemble' comment or something. Anything. To show that my accompaniment wasn't shithouse. Because I had no idea.

It was the end of the night. Some sax guy got a 600 buck scholarship and that was good. Eisteddfods seem lucrative. Some people did some speeches and there were about twelve people in the audience.

I'd practiced an hour a day solely on this event. Even when uni stuff was due. It was an anti-climax.

Then, when the lights went up, a little old lady came up and said, "You played very nicely tonight. You've got something special."

I was like, "Thanks."

But it got better. She was the original piano teacher of a famous guy. A guy who I randomly turned pages for at a big concert. I love that guy (well, you know in a classical piano kind of way). She said I should ring him up and get lessons off him, because I had the same kind of elliptical touch or something.

I won't ring the guy.

Sometimes somebody tells you exactly what you need to hear, just when you need it. That was one of those times.

But, usually it doesn't happen. You just go along, feeling like you might not be doing the things you like properly. Or even if you should bother.

Things you like should just be about liking them, yeah? Having fun. Doing piano at a professional level is an arsehole like that, because to me it feels a whole lot like a competition I didn't sign up for.