My student Emmalie studied piano with me for several years before she moved on to pursue musical theater in high school. Now she's a senior, and recently wrote to say that she had been auditioning for voice at various colleges. One of them asked her to come to a callback.
Then, she writes, "I went into the rehearsal pretty unprepared for it because I was supposed to have two worships songs prepared on piano (reading sheet music as well as each song in two different keys) and vocal parts (including harmonies). I totally didn't even practice one of the songs on piano. . . Anyway..... I played one of the piano pieces fairly well and sang fairly well."
"Then they asked me to play piano with the band on the song I hadn't practiced! . . . I decided just to play the chords and improvise as I went. Half the time the chords were off. In short, It wasn't great! Anyways....... I got an email that I made piano for [one of the groups]. WHAT? Who would have thought? After almost two years of not taking piano and throwing the songs together at the last minute I made piano for a university worship band!"
"Thanks for teaching me how to play by reading music and chords because I wouldn't be where I am today without those skills."
Amen!