Black and White are the only colors I remember as I stared blankly at the expensive Yamaha piano right in front of me, as people looked at me, eager to hear me play…



Summer was coming to an end like it always does, bringing sadness upon most kids. But not for me; I was excited, very excited, because the week school started marked the week I would begin taking Piano lessons once again.


I’ve been taking Piano lessons ever since I was 5, and have always liked to play it. But since I just moved at the time (about 5 years ago), I had to find a new piano teacher, which wasn’t a big deal at all. The teacher was very nice actually, but then she told me after a few weeks of lessons, that I had to perform a favorite piece of mine in front of all her students’ siblings and parents.


At that moment, I froze; I hated performing in front of people, let alone 150+ of them. But that wasn’t the worst part; she told me I had to memorize the piece which means I couldn’t use sheet music whatsoever. Since I could pick my piece though, I thought I would pick a song that I’ve played before, and I’d just wing it. Every day I played my song “Ballade” by “Friedrich Bergmuller” for as long as I could until my parents got sick of hearing it and told me to play a different song.



So along came the 24th of October, the day of the Recital. My parents and I all got ready and headed down to the Church where my Recital was being held. As I walked in, I saw a stack of papers on a chair, which was the program. As I looked at the sheet, I saw I was last and let out a huge sigh of relief. We quickly sat down, and my piano instructor greeted everyone. The recital quickly started. Each student one by one played every one of their pieces flawlessly, and before I knew it, it was my turn to perform.



I briskly walked up to the front of the church and introduced myself and the song I was going to play. As I put my hands on the cold colorless keys of the piano, I froze with fear as 150+ plus people had their cameras ready, looking at me, eager to hear me play. The problem was that as I was about to play, my mind went blank. I had forgotten the song, I had horrible stage fright, and my ears and face were bright red… I thought I was going to die of embarrassment. I just sat there like a statue for what felt like 30 minutes, until my Piano teacher caught the idea, and started looking through her books to find my piece. She finally found it, handed it to me, and I played my piece flawlessly just like everyone else. But those “30 Minutes” of my life, were the most embarrassing moment of my life.