The Piano Sight Reading Incident

My sister is quite an actress.  She and I did not like to visit what we called “Mama’s people” growing up.  But we had fun on one occasion.

My mother was raised by her grandparents.  She did not really know her mother until she was grown.  Her people referred to the kin she grew up knowing.

There was an uncle of some sort that appeared older than dirt to us.  His name was Okler.  Then there was an Aunt Clara who lied about everything and wanted to know how rich and well off she and her children were.  You get the idea.  That was the highlight of this group.  It was Thanksgiving or something like it. 

There were people from other acquaintances there we had never seen before.  One was a gorgeous doctor name Greg.  We were driving at the time and I imagine my sister was about 24.   We were both single.  She kicked me under the dinner table because I was staring at Greg.  It was also a wakeup call to let me know he was off limits as she had her eye on him.

After dinner, Greg was commenting on the piano in the corner.  My sister had been playing piano since the age of seven and was quite good.  She had spent two of her college years studying music.  My sister struck up a conversation with Greg that led to music.  After perusing through a stack of sheet music, he stopped on a piece he stated he liked.

My sister said let me see if I can sight read it.  Sight read is a term musicians use for the first time they go through and try to play a piece of music at first sight.  I was the official music page turner.  I knew she knew the tune, but before I could talk, in the usual manner she kicked me under the piano which meant to shut up.  She commented on it would be hard with four sharps but she would try.  The more sharps or flats a piece of music has, the more times you have to alter a note, which makes it more difficult.

She added a few flubbed part of the song to make it appear that she was really sight reading.  She did get one date.  But they ended up not going on any more.