Next Mozart or Simple Basics?

This is something I wrote as an assignment for the College I'm attending. I joined to improve my writing, but am not sure if it's working. My teacher, who is actually a published writer, thought the story and the writing weren't bad. The story is suposed to be funny and confusing, since it made me confused.

Let's see what you think. Please, take in consideration, there was a limited amout of words I could use, so be kind. It could have been longer, she wanted the basics of the story.

The Next Mozart or Simple Basics?

          I had a lesson to learn, but I never thought that "all cows eating grass" would have anything to do with it.

          One of the steps in most people's lives is to find a hobby to keep themselves challenged and entertained. Too many people thing of a hobby as too much trouble, or that they don't have enough time. Yes, of course, with work and family, a challenging hobby is a hard thing to keep up with. Especially when you try to learn to play the piano.

          My teacher taught me where each finger is placed on the keyboard, right in the middle. True, the middle is moved a bit to the left, because it is actually right below the name of the piano. No matter which piano you play, it is always the same. Easy to remember. Since the first note in the middle is a white key, a note C, it is played with the right hands thumb. The last key, played with the pinky, is automatically the note G. The confusing part is that on a piano, the alphabet goes only from A to G. Some might think this is easier to remember. It's not. Especially when you have so many keys, it's hard to keep in mind which note to play exactly.

          The left hand starts at the note C right below the middle C, meaning move the left pinky to the seventh key toward the left side, counting from the middle. That would be the basic key play for anyone who's taking their first piano lesson, but also the main part by which you go by to play all the songs. The hands have to be moved in specific places for different songs and to figure out where they are possitioned, you look at the notes on the paper, and move your fingers acordingly. You always look for the middle C and go from there.

          To play the piano and learn how songs are played, you have to know how to read music. There are too many keys and notes to list here, but the basics are a full note, half note, half dotted note, quarter note and the sharp and flat notes which are the black keys on the piano. Each hand has its own notes and also, own lines. There are five lines and four spaces in between for each hand.

          For the right hand, the notes on the lines are E, G, B, D, F. To learn this faster, my teacher told me to remember a sentence that has these letters as the beginning of each word. For this one, it was "every good boy does fine". Easy, you think? It is, until you start playing and looking at the lines. Then everything becomes confusing, and all I could think of was, just because the boy was fine with this, I sure am not. Then again, that's the reason why we take lessons for something like this. We have a teacher who keeps explaining it, until we finally understand it. Since the lines jump over a note and you still have the notes in between those lines, you have to know them, too. In this particular case, the letters spell "face" as in F, A, C, E.

          For the left hand however, the lines spell G, B, D, F, A. A sentence to make it easier would be "good boys do fine always". Now, I'm pretty sure these boys knew what they were doing. Mozart, Bach, Beethoven and many others wrote their own music, but in this case, it didn't help me.

          As for the last letters to be learned, at least it made me smile. The notes in between the lines for the left hand are A, C, E, G. It doesn't have much but not an easy thing to remember when you just see all those dots on the paper. For this, the teacher said to have yet another sentence, such as "all cows eat grass". Not very fascinating, I admit, but still a bit funny.

          From this point, learning to play piano gets to be a little difficult, but not something you couldn't manage in your free time. When you finally know what you are doing and all those keys that you play make a song, you'll look back and think how easy it was to learn it all.

          So, next time you see a cow eat grass, thank her for helping all these children to play piano.