My Father's Piano Playing

Today I realized that our conductor is in fact also singing and playing piano with us.  His Billy Joel easy voice and dancing fingers seem trained solely by years of the desire to play and sing this music.  This may or may not be the case, but from it I was taken back to a time when I was very little, sitting on the floor next to the piano bench while my father played through fake books, or worked out arrangements on the piano, his own piano playing self-taught.  I remember the way he would sing along, his voice marking the song, his words and his breath filled with the excitement of R&B tunes, jazz standards, songs I was not yet ready to know or remember.  Such an overwhelming feeling.  Is it because of this memory, so far away?  Perhaps everyone feels this way.  But regardless, I'm thankful to have a touchstone which reminds me of one of my favorite times and experiences in my home, lessons of love I didn't know I was learning.