Teaching An Old Dog New Tricks

Throughout my life I have heard the old adage you can't teach an old dog new tricks but until recently I did not think it pertained to me. I'm here to tell you it does. While I'm not saying that teaching an old dog a new trick is not possible.....I am, however, saying it is much more difficult. Old dogs can learn new tricks. It just takes them longer to learn them and you have to have much more patience with old dogs.

For the past few weeks I and five other women in the ward have been taking an organ class from Jeanette Schulthess. Yes, I can already play the organ and yes I can play it well enough that it sounds somewhat acceptable during a sacrament meeting at church. This has been a totally new experience though. Up to this point I have used only part of the pedalboard when I played and I have always played in my stocking feet. I also was playing all four parts of the song with my hands. According to our teacher, we need to be using the full pedalboard, we need special shoes and we should only be playing three parts---alto, soprano and tenor---with our hands.

The trouble with old dogs is that they are used to doing things the way they have always done them. They don't want to fetch a new fangled looking stick. They are comfortable with the old worn out chewed on stick they have fetched forever. The old dog may compromise a bit with us and play fetch with the new stick while we are there but he is probably always going to go back to the chewed on worn out stick he loves the most.

I'm becoming more comfortable playing the entire pedalboard, and I have to admit I even like the special shoes (see photo below) but I don't think I'll ever been comfortable leaving off the bass part of the music with my hands. Compromise is a good thing---any old dog knows that!