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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

Write a story about someone learning how to play an instrument.

Posted in Nonfiction on Oct 26, 2022

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✍️ 75 stories

“The Southpaw Guitarist ” by Natasha Arnold

Submitted to Contest #38

Dashed by the heavy rainfall, a chestnut-haired boy boy made his way inside before being trampled by the hail. He slammed the door behind him, which would have been much to his Mum’s disapproval. Completely soaked, he ran his fingers through his hair and shook it, although leaving his soggy boots on.There was mischief in his eyes, a smirk growing underneath his lips like moss grows underneath a window pane.Scurrying through the corridor, the child ran around with water dripping behind him, leaving a trail. A sweet giggle laid underneath his ...

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“The Ukulele Saves Mori ” by Morgan Douglas

Submitted to Contest #38

Mori had played instruments before. There was her dedication to the clarinet all throughout middle school and high school. Where she played for competitions and learned to play classical and swing music. Then there were a brief few months in the winter of 2012, where she joined the winter percussion program at her school. Mori didn’t try too hard at tryouts and ended up playing the bells and chimes for the program. To her, it didn’t matter if she was the star of the show on the marimba, she just loved to play music and have fun. When sh...

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“The Pianist” by Jill Howard

Submitted to Contest #38

I guess while I was at the open house for the apartment the landlord had cast a silencing charm. I promise, no sound penetrated the walls I now know to be incredibly thin during that half hour. And it was okay, for a couple weeks after I moved in. The pipes groaned and the AC complained, but the neighbors were tame in their little boxes. Nothing kept me awake at night. That is, until the pianist moved in next door. A walking contradiction, his clothes were too big and his personality too small; he apologized just for walking past m...

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“Off beat” by Mishka Stennett

Submitted to Contest #38

“Darnit!” I exclaimed, exasperated…I just couldn’t get the notes right.I had been practising for hours on my newly bought guitar and hadn’t mastered the song “Minuet” yet. Was it me or the new guitar I wondered? For me playing a new instrument was like learning to play one for the first time. Your hands and fingers had to introduce themselves to the instrument, you had to learn all of the intricacies of its construction, adjust your movements to the “new-ness” of it. Discover what was special about it, and be comforted by what has staye...

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“The Pianist” by Joshua Hopper

Submitted to Contest #38

Your time had finally arrived. You look out the window as the pale light of the morning sun seeps through the windows, blanketing you with warmth. The view from your quiet neighborhood puts you at ease. This is how you always liked it. Solitude. No one to distract you. No one to judge you. Only you and the comforting privacy of your humble home. You feel a smile spreading across your face. Everything in your body feels lighter. Your time had finally arrived. For twelve years you have wanted to learn the piano. For twelve years you ...

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“Start Again” by Ananya M

Submitted to Contest #38

FLASHBACKI sat down at the piano. My fingers were dripping with sweat, and my teeth were chattering. I felt like I was going to vomit. I turned my head to look at the audience. I saw the blinding spotlights instead. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t focus. I- “Julia! Are you ok?”“Julia!”“Get an ambulance! Quickly!”I woke up in a hospital. At least, I thought it was a hospital. I couldn’t see anything except blotchy spots of white. I lifted my head up, and I saw someone that looked like a doctor. I looked to my other side and saw my family....

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“Piano Man” by Kady Nankivel

Submitted to Contest #38

Before the virus hit and everything changed, we would spend every night at the piano. I couldn’t play--I was never really a musical person--but Aimi was a musical genius with that piano. She could look at a piece of music and suddenly know how to play it almost perfectly. It was a nightly game between her and I: I would find a piece of music I didn’t think she could possibly play, and it was her goal to prove me wrong. I loved our nights on the small piano bench. It was a perfect excuse to enjoy each other’s company while music drowned out a...

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“My Music Partner.” by Saranglogy R

Submitted to Contest #38

"Where did I keep it?"I was searching through each shelf in my room, to find the instrument that I got as a gift for my birthday, which was few months back."Mom did you see my keyboard?"I shouted and slowly got down from the chair and moved it to the next area for inspection.The door of my bedroom suddenly opened and I looked at my mom, who was keeping her hands on her waist, and giving me a death glare."Then what's this?" She points out to my keyboard and stared the hell out of me.I sighed, and wished I never asked for her help."Mom, that's...

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“Jeff, the Organ Guy” by Harken Void

Submitted to Contest #38

“You what?!”Jeff sighed. “You’ve heard me, honey. I bought an organ.”“Jefferson Ridgley Jones, please tell me this isn’t another one of your ‘projects’, where you spend all our family money on some ridiculous urge you get, and then we have to struggle for months!”“This is nothing of the sort,” said Jeff, though that’s almost exactly what it was.His wife, Mariane, stood in the hallway, arms crossed and eyes locked on target. Her fury could be heard almost bubbling up from inside her. Though that could just be the food that she was cooking in ...

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“Playing for Time” by Deborah Mercer

Submitted to Contest #38

Well, it wasn’t exactly a lie, thought Jeanette, but when it was considerably closer to being a lie than it was to being the truth then it might as well have been, and especially when there was imminent risk of her being found out.     It had started out as being nearer to the truth than it subsequently became. Her book club hadn’t even been discussing a book you might call directly about music, let alone piano playing. The subject of the meeting had been one of the “new generation” of historical novels and...

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“Guitar Hero” by Santiago Hernandez

Submitted to Contest #38

As a kid Joe has always been musically inclined. He would always make sure that anywhere he went that he had to take his MP 3 player and headphones. Once the I pod came out Joe or as his mother called him Joey made sure that he saved up enough of the money he made from mowing his neighbors lawns so he could buy it. Joey loved music. He made sure he had as much music as possible to as many genres as possible as well. His mother Teresa always saw Joey walking around the house with his headphones in. She would always tell him, “If you keep thos...

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“Octave” by Joy Saker

Submitted to Contest #38

The classroom door opens and Jane pokes her head in.  “It’s Joy’s turn for piano lessons.”I grab my dog-eared, second-hand music book from the depths of the ancient desk and hurry across the flagstoned quadrangle to Sister Macrena’s music room. Running is forbidden at the Convent of the Sacred Heart, but a cross between a scuttle and an Olympic power walk can get you there just as fast, just not very elegantly. The peeling green paint on the warped panels of the door sheds another flake as I fling it open and gasp my apologie...

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“From Crawling to Striding Pianos” by Stephanie Jeannot

Submitted to Contest #38

Learning to play the piano is like learning how to walk from crawling. It is not an easy thing. I watch the falls of a little child in her attempt to just start running. But plop she goes and ends up in tears because it hurt her to fail. She is tired of only being able to sit on her pretty little tail.She decides one day to try standing on her own like a piano player putting her hands on the keys. She moves her hands across the expanse of the piano but not with ease. She tries to build her muscle memory of every song that grabs her attention...

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“Dad, the Bagpipes and Me” by Sue Marsh

Submitted to Contest #38

Dad, the Bagpipes and MeSuzanne Marsh“You want to learn the what?” Dad, had already suffered through my learning to play the accordion, or squeeze box as he called it. Then came the piano, which dad went along with after I complained about the accordion biting my chin and knees, although I think it might have had more to do with a big accordion and a ten year old. The bagpipes were the last thing Pop ever would have thought I would want to play. I was sixteen that summer. My parents and I always went to the Hamburg Fair, this year proved to ...

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“You've Got A Friend In Me” by Des Feller

Submitted to Contest #38

“Ok, first you have to play C,” Mack says, pressing his ring finger on the lowest string. I watch intently as he strums downward, and look down to the instrument in my own hands. A worn ukulele sits in my lap, the back covered in stickers, as though to cover up something darker. I put my ring finger on the lowest string, third ‘fret’ and strum downwards, just how Mack showed me. I rub my fingers together as the strings send a vibration through my hand. I look back up to Mack happily. “Yes, just like that, Chica!” he says encouragingly. “Now,...

6 comments 6
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