How God Gave Me an A
At the beginning of this semester we had a prayer night at Nightlife. We broke up into groups and prayed for specific things for each other. Gloria, Noof and I got into a group, and I was asked what specific things I would like prayed for. Seeing as I didn't know anyone who needed prayer at the time (am I out of touch?), and the only worries I had at the time were my success this semester, I immediately took the opportunity to claim the following scripture:
So I asked that for me, we pray that I would get all sevens this semester, because I had just changed my course, and my GPA had been reset, and I've never had a seven before. And that I would get at least an A on my fourth grade piano exam. An A+ would be good, but I would be 100% happy with an A. I thought I must have looked as selfish as I felt, so I jokingly added, "And of course a million dollars! No, no, I don't really want a million dollars, I would hate to get a million dollars!" (Proverbs 20:21). So Noof said she would "dial up." She was being very creative, so I remember her prayer the easiest. She prayed that I would get my A+ or A, that I would get all sevens, and she said, "And God, Mathieu says he doesn't want a million dollars, but if you feel you want to give him a million dollars, don't hesitate."
Was that the most selfish thing you ever heard? Well, wait till you hear the rest of the story! Well at least the part about the piano exam, anyway.
Throughout the semester, I tried very hard to practise for my piano exam, but uni is stressful, and I was learning my pieces very slowly. There was one piece in particular. I didn't like Alone, a jazz piece by Christopher Norton, because it is not Classical, and most people know I have very narrow taste in music. The reason I chose it as my third list piece, was for this very reason. My teacher didn't want it to look like all I could play was baroque.
Basically, in a fourth grade AMEB exam, you choose three 'list' pieces that you are going to play, and two 'extra list' pieces, of which the examiner will pick one for you to play. Mine were:
When the time came, somewhere mid semester, to do the exam. I hardly knew my pieces at all, and it seemed my music teacher was ready to disown me. It was Sunday, and the only day I had left to practise. I went home that morning, planning to spend the whole day cramming pieces into my memory, which is bad, because you just don't do things this way... I know. Also the electric piano I have at home has the touch of a keyboard, and I'm not really supposed to practise on it, because my fingers get used to it so that they're too weak to play a proper piano. I get laughed at when I try to explain this to people. So laugh.
Anyway, I have the privilege of being allowed to play the grand piano at a certain hall at uni almost anytime I like. It is a historical building, so there are always people taking tours, and they stop to listen while I practise there. I'm sorry, but I can't cram music in this environment, and I wouldn't torture the poor visitors with trying. So I was going to practise at home. I kept praying that God would still even now, find a way to give me an A four my fourth grade exam. I was still totally convinced it was going to happen. I just had no idea how it was possible. Now there had been a lot of things stopping me from practicing every day up to this point, so I was pretty determined that nothing was going to stop me for at least this one day.
I arrived home, and was met with my landlady and her friend. They were trying to pick Pawpaw's from their trees. I wished I could turn invisible, so I could slip past and practise without wasting a second, but God said, "No, other people first!" so I stopped to chat, and even to help. There was a little pawpaw that was quite out of reach for them, so I jumped up and grabbed it. Then they started talking about another Pawpaw, which was bigger than a football, and about five meters high (I don't think I'm exaggerating). They were talking about how they would get it later and implied that they would call me out to help. Well I couldn't have that now, could I?
So as soon as they were gone, I ran around the corner, and 'silently borrowed' a four meter long metal pole from a neighbour, which I think was left over from a TV antenna he had installed. I then ran upstairs and grabbed a chair from my kitchen and started running back down the stairs with it. Then God said, "You are about to get hurt." So I ran down the stairs a little more carefully, figuring, "If I get hurt, at least I'll try not to crack my head open, this is a very high flight of stairs after all."
I was surprised to find myself arriving safely at the bottom of the stairs. So I set the chair under the tree, grabbed the metal rod, and started to poke at the Pawpaw. Worried that I was going to lose balance and end up with the rod in my face, I finally managed to break the Pawpaw free from the branch. And then... I reached out to catch it!
I know it was stupid, but it was an instinctive reaction that I forgot to temporarily mangle. Well, temporarily mangle is instead what the Pawpaw did to the middle finger on my left hand. It landed on the tip of the finger, bending it back, but kind of pivoting in the middle. I knew straight away that I wasn't going to be playing the piano again for a very long time.
I returned the pole, and the Pawpaw to it's owners, who were not too concerned about my finger which was using pain to say to me, "I think I might be broken." I knew though, that my finger wasn't broken. Not because I hadn't heard a 'snap' (although I did hear something) but because I knew this was not a coincidence. I never get injured! Ever! I do extremely dumb things all the time, but never a bruise or a scratch. And if I do, certainly not my fingers, I've been very protective of them ever since I started playing the violin when I was 11. No, I knew that God had found a way to bail me out of my exam. And I didn't expect that my finger would be broken, otherwise I wouldn't be able to practise at all, and I'd never get my A.
For a second, I half worried that the damage might not be so bad, but there was nothing that could convince me that this wasn't God's plan. Sure enough, my finger swelled up to an enormous size, and couldn't be moved at any joint. It was rock hard, no matter how much ice I kept it on. Over the next few days, I realised that it wasn't the slightest inconvenience to me, seeing as I'm right handed. The only inconvenience was, of course, the fact that I couldn't play the piano, and the er... 'unfortunate' fact that I had to postpone the exam.
My teacher and I chose a date that I could do the exam, where I would have time for my finger to heal, and then to start practicing all over again, but also before my uni exams. This was tricky, and there was also a fee I had to pay to defer. I also had to get the medical certificate. I can't remember how I got the money for the fee, all that I remember was that it was the exact amount I needed, and that getting my x-ray was like clockwork the way it all happened.
When my finger healed I was having just as much trouble finding time to practise. I kept asking the lady at the hall what times were free, and asking her, "would it be possible to spend the whole day practicing tomorrow?" and then never showing up. My music lessons were terrible. A lot of the practice I do is for my lesson, so that I'll have something for my teacher to work with. If I can't play the piece up to speed, she just tells me things she's told me already. So I would practise mostly the day before, to make the lesson worth while, both for me and for my teacher, who travels a long way to teach me.
But all these really bizarre things were always happening that stuffed me up. Mostly what would do it, is that I would have to stay up all night the night before, whether because of an assignment I had due, or a personal crisis, or whatever, it always seemed to be Monday night (the night before my lesson), without any connected reason. My performance was so bad at each lesson, that I would always cry on the way home. Why was it that this was happening every single week? The days before, I would really work hard at my pieces, and I would get confident that I could finally make the lesson great, and not drive my teacher up the wall! But the next day my hopes would be dashed. My teacher was getting panicky about the fact that I didn't seem to be getting anywhere, and was saying, "I don't know what to do! I don't want to have to pull you out of the exam."
Meanwhile, what I didn't dare tell my teacher, was that I was telling everyone I was going to get at least an A in my piano exam. Although I didn't understand why the lessons weren't working out, I was certain God had promised me an A.
Last year, when I did my first piano exam, second grade, I was convinced that God was telling me I was going to get an A then as well. On the train, on the way to my grade two exam, I was praying about it, and I opened my eyes and found that I was looking at the letter A in a square on the wall of the train. Please understand this sign wasn't the sole reason I thought God was talking to me, it was just extra encouragement I needed just before the exam. I got at A for that one.
Then when I did my third grade exam, also last year, I was convinced God was telling me I was going to get a B. And I certainly didn't deserve an A. There was one extra list piece that I didn't know at all, and simply crammed it into my memory just the night before. I was sadly telling everybody I was going to get a B, and when I rang my teacher from Schoolies to find out my results, I handed the phone to a friend so that he could see that I was right, and that I had in fact got a B. On the way to the grade three exam on the train, I had been praying about it, but knowing the answer was B. I tried to keep myself from looking at that square on the wall, because I knew I would see the A, and would be doing it falsely to encourage myself, when all I really wanted, was to know the truth. I looked anyway, and it said B! It turns out it doesn't always have A written in that square after all.
This time round, every time I even thought about my fourth grade exam, God would say "A". I couldn't see how it was going to happen, but I told everyone confidently that I was getting an A. And then anytime I thought about it in the last two weeks before the exam, everywhere I glanced, from street signs to books, all I saw was A, A, A. Please understand that I'm not endorsing trusting signs, only trust God.
Now I mentioned before that weird things were happening that affected my lessons, but some of them were really bizarre. So bizarre, that it was just outrageous! Out of the stuff that was happening, the most bizarre thing that I dared to tell my music teacher, was that on my second last lesson, my mind flipped around and my right hand thought it was my left hand, and vice versa. This had happened before, under extreme stress, and it apparently is one of those unexplainable things that can happen to people who have dyslexia. At my lesson though, it didn't surprise me at all, I just thought it was the most believable thing that was happening that I could tell my teacher when she was trying to make sense of the fact that I didn't seem to care enough about my lessons to be doing any work.
There was another really strange thing, although it doesn't have much to do with the story, but there was always something that happened every week on the bus on the way to the exam. Usually, the bus wouldn't show up, and I would have to get the next one. It wasn't that I missed it, because there would usually be people there with me to remark that the bus didn't show up. One time, the bus showed, but it drove to the middle of the road and stopped there just long enough for me to hop on. One week, I caught the bus, and thought, "Wow! I can tell my music teacher that nothing strange happened this week," but then when it came time to drop me and this little old lady off, the driver suddenly sped as fast as he could past our stop, and dropped us off later (yes, I do know how to work the bell).
On the night before my second last lesson, I had to stay up all night yet again! I knew that I it was just going to be the same old story, and that when my teacher heard that I had not slept again, she would say, "Oh, Mathieu!" as though I was in control, and it was my fault. While thinking about this on the way to the lesson, God told me not to cry after the lesson that day.
So I started thinking of all the things I could say to my teacher to convince her that I really was working hard, but that there were all these really ridiculous coincidences that prevented me from getting anywhere, and that I should really not be putting myself through the stress of another lesson that will just make me more stressed. I always acted coolly about the exam when she was expressing her anxiety, because I was already stressed about it, and didn't want her stress to rub of on me.
Then God said something like, "Forget your own frustration. Remember your teacher is not anymore at fault than you are for the things that have been happening than you, and she has been bending over backwards to help you, even though it seems to her as though you've lost interest or something. Forget about how stressed it's going to make you, and treat her better."
So I prayed that God would give me heaps of patience, so that I could put myself in her shoes. Might as well, seeing as no amount of patience was helping me perform better. It was a good thing too, because when I got there I realised that she was really nervous about the exam, and that my frustration could have cooked up a huge disaster. I'm sorry to say though, that even though God gave me heaps of patience that day, I didn't behave as patiently as I could have. But I realised so many things about why I was still supposed to be coming to lessons, that I told my teacher that I felt we got really far today, which must have confused her no end.
I still felt like crying on the way home, but I didn't.
On the way to my last lesson, (the bus had of course stopped just down the road and waited for me to run from the bus stop to where the bus stopped really. The driver simply said, "I didn't realise that when you were hailing the bus, you actually meant that you wanted me to stop." or something like that, but stranger, so that I can't remember it exactly), God told me that on the way back from the lesson today, I would have joy and peace and that I was actually going to sing that song; You shall go out with Joy. I marvelled at how this could be possible, seeing as I really had to stay up the night before, and I had even tried to play that morning and couldn't.
After getting off the bus, I was asking for an answer as to why I was being (almost supernaturally I couldn't help realise at this point) prevented from performing in my lessons. Was it simply so that when I got my A, that God would get all the glory? I certainly didn't want the glory, I wanted everyone to know that God made it happen. I was trying my best, but I certainly wasn't at A quality, and as far as my teacher could see, I wasn't even at pass quality, and she told me in the lesson that day.
"If you play at your exam the way you played for me today," She said, "You won't even get a C. You won't pass at all. But you know that already, don't you. Now please don't lie to me. You have never played this piece right through from beginning to end have you?" [After attempting to play Alone]
"Yes, yes!" I protested, "I was playing it so well, just yesterday! I had it all by memory!"
"I know I know," Said my teacher, almost sarcastically, "but you just can't play it for me."
Then at the end of the lesson, she said, "So that's how it is then is it? You're going to do the exam then are you? Like this?"
But somewhere during that lesson, God had showed me a piece of the grand reason why my lessons had all been this way. It was sooooo complicated! So ingenious! I was almost experiencing euphoria trying to comprehend it all. I wanted to explain it to my teacher right away because I knew I'd forget otherwise, but there's no way I could have started explaining any of it without sounding off my rocker, or to even explain what it was that had been answered, as she would have found it impossible to believe that there was anything supernatural stopping me from anything. On the way out of the lesson, guess what I was singing while running down the street!
The day before the exam, I went to the hall first thing in the morning. I practised on the grand piano from about 9am to 4pm. I was amazed! All the parts of the pieces I still had to work on, fell into place as though I had always known them, and all I needed to work on was my interpretation etc. Solfegetto, was not as fast as I was looking forward to being able to play it, but it was smooth without any hiccups. And God told me I wouldn't be playing it anyway. So I concentrated more on Für Elise.
After 4pm, the hall closed, and I moved to the chaplaincy, and started practising my scales on the electric piano there, which has a heavier touch than mine at home. In fourth grade, there are four major scales, E, F, B, and B♭, and the same four harmonic and melodic minor scales, and then you play most of each of those in five different ways. Normally, Chromatic, Staccato, Contrary Motion and Arpeggios. And in turn each of these, except Contrary Motion is played either with the hands together, or either left or right hand on it's own. The examiner then chooses which scales of which type you are to play.
For almost a year now, in my pocket, I've been carrying around a little laminated chart with a table of all of the scales I needed to practise. But when I found that the very day that I was going to go over every scale thoroughly, my chart had disappeared, I was not surprised because I knew that I wasn't going to practise them all, and that God was going to help me practise the right ones. I only realised this though, when every time I was going to play a contrary motion scale, instead of starting off with the easiest, E major, I found myself playing only B♭ major all the time, which is one of the harder types on the list. I couldn't bring myself to play B minor though which is just as hard.
I suddenly became very good at B♭ major contrary motion, and prayed that that was the contrary motion scale I would be asked to play. Then I knew that God had led me to pray that prayer, and I prayed over the other scales, and only played one of each kind.
After a while I simply stopped playing minor scales altogether, and only focused on this combination. This was good, because otherwise it would have taken me more than a day to get the scales where they should be (this was at the night before the exam), but it only took a couple of hours. I decided that I would follow the advice of one of those exam experts, who said that after preparing for an exam the night before, you don't touch it the morning after. So I left uni late, breaking my bag on the way out, and studied all the sorts of general knowledge that my music teacher had outlined. I had no money, and had to borrow $1.90 from my flatmate for the train, who gave it to me in 5¢ pieces.
The next morning, Tuesday, the day of the exam, I woke up quite late, wishing that I could find someone to pray for me, even though I knew that my teacher would be, because I wanted them to see the power of God. I had no time to ring anyone, so I left. The exam was at 12:59, but I needed to get there at 12:30 to warm up. Once on the train (after wishing someone had lined up behind me at the ticket machine, considering the coinage I had (I'm mean, I know)) I started reading my Bible, by now God was speaking to me about everything, and telling me to stop stressing myself out. I didn't dare doubt by now that I was getting an A. At about 11am, God said, "Get off the train here." We were at Southbank. The exam was on the other side of the Roma Street Parklands from the Station.
If I got off here, I would be tempted to practise at uni, and I would forget the time and arrive late. I immediately got up anyway, and walked to the door and opened it, but then I stopped, saying, "I'm just imagining things. God wouldn't tell me to do that."
Then the speaker said, "Doors are closing. Please stand clear."
"See, it couldn't be right, because the doors are closing and I've run out of time!"
I distinctly remember deciding to play it safe and sit back down, but then jumping off the train, saying, "I must be insane!" and realising instantly that I had done the right thing, and seeing things that would follow. I walked over the bridge to the chaplaincy at uni, and dropped off my broken bag, taking my music books out and putting them into a plastic bag. Pat was there, and said he would pray for me on my exam. On my way out, I remembered that's what I had wanted, but all I managed to tell him, was that "I was glad."
I went to the hall, and unravelled all my pieces on the grand piano. After I started practicing, I realised that my mind had scattered during the night, and that to get it all back, I needed more than just the quick warm up that they give you before the exam, and that if I hadn't come here I would be stuffed. I got everything back to speed at 12:10. It then took me 20 minutes to walk from uni to the AMEB building. I warmed up, and was stopped at just the right time. Then I was told very solemnly that it was time, and had to sit just outside the room and wait for the person before me to finish.
Even though I had not yet played A quality, all the while, God was telling me I was getting an A, and confirming it over and over, so that I had no room to question it without being told, "You're getting an A, so get over it and stop stressing." After I had been sitting there a while. God said, "OK, now the examiner is about to open the door. You know that you're going to get an A. The question is, are you going to enjoy getting it, or are you going to stress yourself rotten while it's happening?" The examiner opened the door.
On my previous two exams, I had been unable to do the small talk comfortably with the examiner, but this time, I was all lit up. She asked me to play the exact scales that I had practised. I was especially waiting for the Contrary Motion. Sure enough, B♭ major. I was really excited at the end of the scales, that they had all been the exact ones that I had practised. Of course, I was already excited before I went in, to find out how God was going to achieve everything. Although I didn't think I was performing brilliantly, I knew that God was, and that I had nothing to worry about.
Then came the pieces. I had given the examiner the music books, so that I could play the pieces by memory. On the Invention, I stuffed up in a really easy spot just as I had known I would, and had previousely practised being able to start again just before the spot. On the Sonatine, I stuffed up a part completely, and she let me skip the whole piece for later. That meant that it was right onto Alone. I played it through, not exactly as fast as it was supposed to be, but I knew she was enjoying it immensely. When I finished, she asked if I liked the piece, in a tone that said, "You must really like that piece!" I said I didn't. After she disbelieved me, I said that I did now, because I could play it. She agreed that it must have grown on me.
Then she asked me which extra list I would like to play. I said I couldn't choose, knowing full well that I was going to play Für Elise, and that's what she chose. I knew she really liked my interpretation, and at the end she said it was beautiful. I didn't disagree. She was then going to move on, but I reminded her about the other list piece. She thought I meant the other extra list, and proceeded to explain that I wasn't required to play it, but I explained that I meant the Sonatine. It turned out she was going to get me to play it at the end, but I wanted to do it now. This time I got through it all fine.
The only test I felt I didn't do well, was sight reading. That was atrocious! But the others were almost perfect. In one test, the examiner asked me to hum and name intervals between notes. They were simply the same intervals as in Amazing Grace, as I knew they would be and I had counted the distance that morning before I left home. Everything was already worked out for me. At the end of the exam, she said, "You got nervous, but I just want to say, don't get nervous, because you have a great musical touch and have nothing to be nervous about."
I had a piano lesson scheduled for right after the exam. So I went straight to it, still without my bag, wondering how on earth I should break the news to my teacher that I got the A, when I hadn't told her before that I was going to get one, and I hadn't been told that I did get one. There was no news to me, I only knew for the same reason I knew before. God had confirmed it. And it wasn't because of my performance. In fact I was now even more mystified, because I thought the sight reading test must have really stuffed things up. So I decided to just tell her that I did well. I didn't use the bus, I used the train instead, but I got lost on the way, after having walked the same way every week. I got so lost that I'd been walking in the opposite direction for ages!
At the lesson, I tried to act cool. I said that I went well, and my teacher was relieved. I told her that the examiner seemed surprised that I didn't like Alone after she heard me play it. "So you're telling me that you played it right through then?" she said.
"Yes." I replied simply.
"And I never even got to hear you play it once!" She said. My teacher was obviously disappointed, and it made me feel really sad. "Well you know that this has got to change. This can't happen again on your next exam."
After the lesson, having agreed that she would probably find out what I got on Friday (today), I thought I should give my teacher a bit of a warning. I told her that I'd been telling everybody that I was going to get an A.
"Well that's a little bit... hopeful... isn't it?" she said.
"Well actually," I said, "I've been telling them that I'm going to get at least an A."
That night at nightlife, after most people went home, Trevor asked me to play Für Elise "because", he said "You can play it quite well, can't you?"
"Not now I can't," I said, "I've just done my exam!"
Sure enough, I was stuffed. I tried playing Alone, and I was all over the place. Absolutely terrible! I felt great!
Well then, that's the end of the story isn't it? Oh yeah, then there's the part that happened today, but it's really not that significant. I was woken up this morning, by a phone call from my music teacher who somehow knew that she had woken me up, even though it was 11am. Not that I minded, I was hoping to get up early anyway, because I wanted to go straight to uni and type up this post on my blog. I had to wait until today, because I had it in my mind that I didn't have the faith to type the post until it was Friday, because that's when I would find out that I got an A, but I forgot that I actually had to be told that I got an A. The truth is, my teacher could have told me I got a B+, but I wouldn't have believed it. I would have just said she was pulling my leg, or that they made a mistake and mixed up the results with someone else, and not to worry, that they would fix things soon, and my A would turn up.
"Did the examiner say anything about the mark you got?" She asked.
"No." I said.
"Then I'm just really curious," she said, "As to how you knew that you got an A!"
"Oh." I said. My teacher's half question, half proclamation, obviously not being news to me. "Well you see it's like this. At the beginning of this semester..."
“19 "Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven.(See also Matthew 6:1-34; 7:7-11; 21:19-22, Luke 11:1-13, John 14:13-14)
20 "For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them."”
Matthew 18:19-20 (NKJV)
So I asked that for me, we pray that I would get all sevens this semester, because I had just changed my course, and my GPA had been reset, and I've never had a seven before. And that I would get at least an A on my fourth grade piano exam. An A+ would be good, but I would be 100% happy with an A. I thought I must have looked as selfish as I felt, so I jokingly added, "And of course a million dollars! No, no, I don't really want a million dollars, I would hate to get a million dollars!" (Proverbs 20:21). So Noof said she would "dial up." She was being very creative, so I remember her prayer the easiest. She prayed that I would get my A+ or A, that I would get all sevens, and she said, "And God, Mathieu says he doesn't want a million dollars, but if you feel you want to give him a million dollars, don't hesitate."
Was that the most selfish thing you ever heard? Well, wait till you hear the rest of the story! Well at least the part about the piano exam, anyway.
Throughout the semester, I tried very hard to practise for my piano exam, but uni is stressful, and I was learning my pieces very slowly. There was one piece in particular. I didn't like Alone, a jazz piece by Christopher Norton, because it is not Classical, and most people know I have very narrow taste in music. The reason I chose it as my third list piece, was for this very reason. My teacher didn't want it to look like all I could play was baroque.
Basically, in a fourth grade AMEB exam, you choose three 'list' pieces that you are going to play, and two 'extra list' pieces, of which the examiner will pick one for you to play. Mine were:
| List A: | Invention 1 | - Johann Sebastian Bach | |
| List B: | Sonatine | - Muzio Clementi | |
| List C: | Alone | - Christopher Norton | |
| Extra List: | Für Elise | - Ludwig Van Beethoven | |
| Extra List: | Solfegetto | - Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach | (funny version) |
When the time came, somewhere mid semester, to do the exam. I hardly knew my pieces at all, and it seemed my music teacher was ready to disown me. It was Sunday, and the only day I had left to practise. I went home that morning, planning to spend the whole day cramming pieces into my memory, which is bad, because you just don't do things this way... I know. Also the electric piano I have at home has the touch of a keyboard, and I'm not really supposed to practise on it, because my fingers get used to it so that they're too weak to play a proper piano. I get laughed at when I try to explain this to people. So laugh.
Anyway, I have the privilege of being allowed to play the grand piano at a certain hall at uni almost anytime I like. It is a historical building, so there are always people taking tours, and they stop to listen while I practise there. I'm sorry, but I can't cram music in this environment, and I wouldn't torture the poor visitors with trying. So I was going to practise at home. I kept praying that God would still even now, find a way to give me an A four my fourth grade exam. I was still totally convinced it was going to happen. I just had no idea how it was possible. Now there had been a lot of things stopping me from practicing every day up to this point, so I was pretty determined that nothing was going to stop me for at least this one day.
I arrived home, and was met with my landlady and her friend. They were trying to pick Pawpaw's from their trees. I wished I could turn invisible, so I could slip past and practise without wasting a second, but God said, "No, other people first!" so I stopped to chat, and even to help. There was a little pawpaw that was quite out of reach for them, so I jumped up and grabbed it. Then they started talking about another Pawpaw, which was bigger than a football, and about five meters high (I don't think I'm exaggerating). They were talking about how they would get it later and implied that they would call me out to help. Well I couldn't have that now, could I?
So as soon as they were gone, I ran around the corner, and 'silently borrowed' a four meter long metal pole from a neighbour, which I think was left over from a TV antenna he had installed. I then ran upstairs and grabbed a chair from my kitchen and started running back down the stairs with it. Then God said, "You are about to get hurt." So I ran down the stairs a little more carefully, figuring, "If I get hurt, at least I'll try not to crack my head open, this is a very high flight of stairs after all."
I was surprised to find myself arriving safely at the bottom of the stairs. So I set the chair under the tree, grabbed the metal rod, and started to poke at the Pawpaw. Worried that I was going to lose balance and end up with the rod in my face, I finally managed to break the Pawpaw free from the branch. And then... I reached out to catch it!
I know it was stupid, but it was an instinctive reaction that I forgot to temporarily mangle. Well, temporarily mangle is instead what the Pawpaw did to the middle finger on my left hand. It landed on the tip of the finger, bending it back, but kind of pivoting in the middle. I knew straight away that I wasn't going to be playing the piano again for a very long time.
I returned the pole, and the Pawpaw to it's owners, who were not too concerned about my finger which was using pain to say to me, "I think I might be broken." I knew though, that my finger wasn't broken. Not because I hadn't heard a 'snap' (although I did hear something) but because I knew this was not a coincidence. I never get injured! Ever! I do extremely dumb things all the time, but never a bruise or a scratch. And if I do, certainly not my fingers, I've been very protective of them ever since I started playing the violin when I was 11. No, I knew that God had found a way to bail me out of my exam. And I didn't expect that my finger would be broken, otherwise I wouldn't be able to practise at all, and I'd never get my A.
For a second, I half worried that the damage might not be so bad, but there was nothing that could convince me that this wasn't God's plan. Sure enough, my finger swelled up to an enormous size, and couldn't be moved at any joint. It was rock hard, no matter how much ice I kept it on. Over the next few days, I realised that it wasn't the slightest inconvenience to me, seeing as I'm right handed. The only inconvenience was, of course, the fact that I couldn't play the piano, and the er... 'unfortunate' fact that I had to postpone the exam.
My teacher and I chose a date that I could do the exam, where I would have time for my finger to heal, and then to start practicing all over again, but also before my uni exams. This was tricky, and there was also a fee I had to pay to defer. I also had to get the medical certificate. I can't remember how I got the money for the fee, all that I remember was that it was the exact amount I needed, and that getting my x-ray was like clockwork the way it all happened.
When my finger healed I was having just as much trouble finding time to practise. I kept asking the lady at the hall what times were free, and asking her, "would it be possible to spend the whole day practicing tomorrow?" and then never showing up. My music lessons were terrible. A lot of the practice I do is for my lesson, so that I'll have something for my teacher to work with. If I can't play the piece up to speed, she just tells me things she's told me already. So I would practise mostly the day before, to make the lesson worth while, both for me and for my teacher, who travels a long way to teach me.
But all these really bizarre things were always happening that stuffed me up. Mostly what would do it, is that I would have to stay up all night the night before, whether because of an assignment I had due, or a personal crisis, or whatever, it always seemed to be Monday night (the night before my lesson), without any connected reason. My performance was so bad at each lesson, that I would always cry on the way home. Why was it that this was happening every single week? The days before, I would really work hard at my pieces, and I would get confident that I could finally make the lesson great, and not drive my teacher up the wall! But the next day my hopes would be dashed. My teacher was getting panicky about the fact that I didn't seem to be getting anywhere, and was saying, "I don't know what to do! I don't want to have to pull you out of the exam."
Meanwhile, what I didn't dare tell my teacher, was that I was telling everyone I was going to get at least an A in my piano exam. Although I didn't understand why the lessons weren't working out, I was certain God had promised me an A.
Last year, when I did my first piano exam, second grade, I was convinced that God was telling me I was going to get an A then as well. On the train, on the way to my grade two exam, I was praying about it, and I opened my eyes and found that I was looking at the letter A in a square on the wall of the train. Please understand this sign wasn't the sole reason I thought God was talking to me, it was just extra encouragement I needed just before the exam. I got at A for that one.
Then when I did my third grade exam, also last year, I was convinced God was telling me I was going to get a B. And I certainly didn't deserve an A. There was one extra list piece that I didn't know at all, and simply crammed it into my memory just the night before. I was sadly telling everybody I was going to get a B, and when I rang my teacher from Schoolies to find out my results, I handed the phone to a friend so that he could see that I was right, and that I had in fact got a B. On the way to the grade three exam on the train, I had been praying about it, but knowing the answer was B. I tried to keep myself from looking at that square on the wall, because I knew I would see the A, and would be doing it falsely to encourage myself, when all I really wanted, was to know the truth. I looked anyway, and it said B! It turns out it doesn't always have A written in that square after all.
This time round, every time I even thought about my fourth grade exam, God would say "A". I couldn't see how it was going to happen, but I told everyone confidently that I was getting an A. And then anytime I thought about it in the last two weeks before the exam, everywhere I glanced, from street signs to books, all I saw was A, A, A. Please understand that I'm not endorsing trusting signs, only trust God.
Now I mentioned before that weird things were happening that affected my lessons, but some of them were really bizarre. So bizarre, that it was just outrageous! Out of the stuff that was happening, the most bizarre thing that I dared to tell my music teacher, was that on my second last lesson, my mind flipped around and my right hand thought it was my left hand, and vice versa. This had happened before, under extreme stress, and it apparently is one of those unexplainable things that can happen to people who have dyslexia. At my lesson though, it didn't surprise me at all, I just thought it was the most believable thing that was happening that I could tell my teacher when she was trying to make sense of the fact that I didn't seem to care enough about my lessons to be doing any work.
There was another really strange thing, although it doesn't have much to do with the story, but there was always something that happened every week on the bus on the way to the exam. Usually, the bus wouldn't show up, and I would have to get the next one. It wasn't that I missed it, because there would usually be people there with me to remark that the bus didn't show up. One time, the bus showed, but it drove to the middle of the road and stopped there just long enough for me to hop on. One week, I caught the bus, and thought, "Wow! I can tell my music teacher that nothing strange happened this week," but then when it came time to drop me and this little old lady off, the driver suddenly sped as fast as he could past our stop, and dropped us off later (yes, I do know how to work the bell).
On the night before my second last lesson, I had to stay up all night yet again! I knew that I it was just going to be the same old story, and that when my teacher heard that I had not slept again, she would say, "Oh, Mathieu!" as though I was in control, and it was my fault. While thinking about this on the way to the lesson, God told me not to cry after the lesson that day.
So I started thinking of all the things I could say to my teacher to convince her that I really was working hard, but that there were all these really ridiculous coincidences that prevented me from getting anywhere, and that I should really not be putting myself through the stress of another lesson that will just make me more stressed. I always acted coolly about the exam when she was expressing her anxiety, because I was already stressed about it, and didn't want her stress to rub of on me.
Then God said something like, "Forget your own frustration. Remember your teacher is not anymore at fault than you are for the things that have been happening than you, and she has been bending over backwards to help you, even though it seems to her as though you've lost interest or something. Forget about how stressed it's going to make you, and treat her better."
So I prayed that God would give me heaps of patience, so that I could put myself in her shoes. Might as well, seeing as no amount of patience was helping me perform better. It was a good thing too, because when I got there I realised that she was really nervous about the exam, and that my frustration could have cooked up a huge disaster. I'm sorry to say though, that even though God gave me heaps of patience that day, I didn't behave as patiently as I could have. But I realised so many things about why I was still supposed to be coming to lessons, that I told my teacher that I felt we got really far today, which must have confused her no end.
I still felt like crying on the way home, but I didn't.
On the way to my last lesson, (the bus had of course stopped just down the road and waited for me to run from the bus stop to where the bus stopped really. The driver simply said, "I didn't realise that when you were hailing the bus, you actually meant that you wanted me to stop." or something like that, but stranger, so that I can't remember it exactly), God told me that on the way back from the lesson today, I would have joy and peace and that I was actually going to sing that song; You shall go out with Joy. I marvelled at how this could be possible, seeing as I really had to stay up the night before, and I had even tried to play that morning and couldn't.
After getting off the bus, I was asking for an answer as to why I was being (almost supernaturally I couldn't help realise at this point) prevented from performing in my lessons. Was it simply so that when I got my A, that God would get all the glory? I certainly didn't want the glory, I wanted everyone to know that God made it happen. I was trying my best, but I certainly wasn't at A quality, and as far as my teacher could see, I wasn't even at pass quality, and she told me in the lesson that day.
"If you play at your exam the way you played for me today," She said, "You won't even get a C. You won't pass at all. But you know that already, don't you. Now please don't lie to me. You have never played this piece right through from beginning to end have you?" [After attempting to play Alone]
"Yes, yes!" I protested, "I was playing it so well, just yesterday! I had it all by memory!"
"I know I know," Said my teacher, almost sarcastically, "but you just can't play it for me."
Then at the end of the lesson, she said, "So that's how it is then is it? You're going to do the exam then are you? Like this?"
But somewhere during that lesson, God had showed me a piece of the grand reason why my lessons had all been this way. It was sooooo complicated! So ingenious! I was almost experiencing euphoria trying to comprehend it all. I wanted to explain it to my teacher right away because I knew I'd forget otherwise, but there's no way I could have started explaining any of it without sounding off my rocker, or to even explain what it was that had been answered, as she would have found it impossible to believe that there was anything supernatural stopping me from anything. On the way out of the lesson, guess what I was singing while running down the street!
The day before the exam, I went to the hall first thing in the morning. I practised on the grand piano from about 9am to 4pm. I was amazed! All the parts of the pieces I still had to work on, fell into place as though I had always known them, and all I needed to work on was my interpretation etc. Solfegetto, was not as fast as I was looking forward to being able to play it, but it was smooth without any hiccups. And God told me I wouldn't be playing it anyway. So I concentrated more on Für Elise.
After 4pm, the hall closed, and I moved to the chaplaincy, and started practising my scales on the electric piano there, which has a heavier touch than mine at home. In fourth grade, there are four major scales, E, F, B, and B♭, and the same four harmonic and melodic minor scales, and then you play most of each of those in five different ways. Normally, Chromatic, Staccato, Contrary Motion and Arpeggios. And in turn each of these, except Contrary Motion is played either with the hands together, or either left or right hand on it's own. The examiner then chooses which scales of which type you are to play.
For almost a year now, in my pocket, I've been carrying around a little laminated chart with a table of all of the scales I needed to practise. But when I found that the very day that I was going to go over every scale thoroughly, my chart had disappeared, I was not surprised because I knew that I wasn't going to practise them all, and that God was going to help me practise the right ones. I only realised this though, when every time I was going to play a contrary motion scale, instead of starting off with the easiest, E major, I found myself playing only B♭ major all the time, which is one of the harder types on the list. I couldn't bring myself to play B minor though which is just as hard.
I suddenly became very good at B♭ major contrary motion, and prayed that that was the contrary motion scale I would be asked to play. Then I knew that God had led me to pray that prayer, and I prayed over the other scales, and only played one of each kind.
| Normal: | B major | - both hands together |
| Chromatic: | F | - one hand |
| Staccato: | E major | - both hands together |
| Contrary Motion: | B♭ major | |
| Arpeggio: | E major | - hands together |
After a while I simply stopped playing minor scales altogether, and only focused on this combination. This was good, because otherwise it would have taken me more than a day to get the scales where they should be (this was at the night before the exam), but it only took a couple of hours. I decided that I would follow the advice of one of those exam experts, who said that after preparing for an exam the night before, you don't touch it the morning after. So I left uni late, breaking my bag on the way out, and studied all the sorts of general knowledge that my music teacher had outlined. I had no money, and had to borrow $1.90 from my flatmate for the train, who gave it to me in 5¢ pieces.
The next morning, Tuesday, the day of the exam, I woke up quite late, wishing that I could find someone to pray for me, even though I knew that my teacher would be, because I wanted them to see the power of God. I had no time to ring anyone, so I left. The exam was at 12:59, but I needed to get there at 12:30 to warm up. Once on the train (after wishing someone had lined up behind me at the ticket machine, considering the coinage I had (I'm mean, I know)) I started reading my Bible, by now God was speaking to me about everything, and telling me to stop stressing myself out. I didn't dare doubt by now that I was getting an A. At about 11am, God said, "Get off the train here." We were at Southbank. The exam was on the other side of the Roma Street Parklands from the Station.
If I got off here, I would be tempted to practise at uni, and I would forget the time and arrive late. I immediately got up anyway, and walked to the door and opened it, but then I stopped, saying, "I'm just imagining things. God wouldn't tell me to do that."
Then the speaker said, "Doors are closing. Please stand clear."
"See, it couldn't be right, because the doors are closing and I've run out of time!"
I distinctly remember deciding to play it safe and sit back down, but then jumping off the train, saying, "I must be insane!" and realising instantly that I had done the right thing, and seeing things that would follow. I walked over the bridge to the chaplaincy at uni, and dropped off my broken bag, taking my music books out and putting them into a plastic bag. Pat was there, and said he would pray for me on my exam. On my way out, I remembered that's what I had wanted, but all I managed to tell him, was that "I was glad."
I went to the hall, and unravelled all my pieces on the grand piano. After I started practicing, I realised that my mind had scattered during the night, and that to get it all back, I needed more than just the quick warm up that they give you before the exam, and that if I hadn't come here I would be stuffed. I got everything back to speed at 12:10. It then took me 20 minutes to walk from uni to the AMEB building. I warmed up, and was stopped at just the right time. Then I was told very solemnly that it was time, and had to sit just outside the room and wait for the person before me to finish.
Even though I had not yet played A quality, all the while, God was telling me I was getting an A, and confirming it over and over, so that I had no room to question it without being told, "You're getting an A, so get over it and stop stressing." After I had been sitting there a while. God said, "OK, now the examiner is about to open the door. You know that you're going to get an A. The question is, are you going to enjoy getting it, or are you going to stress yourself rotten while it's happening?" The examiner opened the door.
On my previous two exams, I had been unable to do the small talk comfortably with the examiner, but this time, I was all lit up. She asked me to play the exact scales that I had practised. I was especially waiting for the Contrary Motion. Sure enough, B♭ major. I was really excited at the end of the scales, that they had all been the exact ones that I had practised. Of course, I was already excited before I went in, to find out how God was going to achieve everything. Although I didn't think I was performing brilliantly, I knew that God was, and that I had nothing to worry about.
Then came the pieces. I had given the examiner the music books, so that I could play the pieces by memory. On the Invention, I stuffed up in a really easy spot just as I had known I would, and had previousely practised being able to start again just before the spot. On the Sonatine, I stuffed up a part completely, and she let me skip the whole piece for later. That meant that it was right onto Alone. I played it through, not exactly as fast as it was supposed to be, but I knew she was enjoying it immensely. When I finished, she asked if I liked the piece, in a tone that said, "You must really like that piece!" I said I didn't. After she disbelieved me, I said that I did now, because I could play it. She agreed that it must have grown on me.
Then she asked me which extra list I would like to play. I said I couldn't choose, knowing full well that I was going to play Für Elise, and that's what she chose. I knew she really liked my interpretation, and at the end she said it was beautiful. I didn't disagree. She was then going to move on, but I reminded her about the other list piece. She thought I meant the other extra list, and proceeded to explain that I wasn't required to play it, but I explained that I meant the Sonatine. It turned out she was going to get me to play it at the end, but I wanted to do it now. This time I got through it all fine.
The only test I felt I didn't do well, was sight reading. That was atrocious! But the others were almost perfect. In one test, the examiner asked me to hum and name intervals between notes. They were simply the same intervals as in Amazing Grace, as I knew they would be and I had counted the distance that morning before I left home. Everything was already worked out for me. At the end of the exam, she said, "You got nervous, but I just want to say, don't get nervous, because you have a great musical touch and have nothing to be nervous about."
I had a piano lesson scheduled for right after the exam. So I went straight to it, still without my bag, wondering how on earth I should break the news to my teacher that I got the A, when I hadn't told her before that I was going to get one, and I hadn't been told that I did get one. There was no news to me, I only knew for the same reason I knew before. God had confirmed it. And it wasn't because of my performance. In fact I was now even more mystified, because I thought the sight reading test must have really stuffed things up. So I decided to just tell her that I did well. I didn't use the bus, I used the train instead, but I got lost on the way, after having walked the same way every week. I got so lost that I'd been walking in the opposite direction for ages!
At the lesson, I tried to act cool. I said that I went well, and my teacher was relieved. I told her that the examiner seemed surprised that I didn't like Alone after she heard me play it. "So you're telling me that you played it right through then?" she said.
"Yes." I replied simply.
"And I never even got to hear you play it once!" She said. My teacher was obviously disappointed, and it made me feel really sad. "Well you know that this has got to change. This can't happen again on your next exam."
After the lesson, having agreed that she would probably find out what I got on Friday (today), I thought I should give my teacher a bit of a warning. I told her that I'd been telling everybody that I was going to get an A.
"Well that's a little bit... hopeful... isn't it?" she said.
"Well actually," I said, "I've been telling them that I'm going to get at least an A."
That night at nightlife, after most people went home, Trevor asked me to play Für Elise "because", he said "You can play it quite well, can't you?"
"Not now I can't," I said, "I've just done my exam!"
Sure enough, I was stuffed. I tried playing Alone, and I was all over the place. Absolutely terrible! I felt great!
Well then, that's the end of the story isn't it? Oh yeah, then there's the part that happened today, but it's really not that significant. I was woken up this morning, by a phone call from my music teacher who somehow knew that she had woken me up, even though it was 11am. Not that I minded, I was hoping to get up early anyway, because I wanted to go straight to uni and type up this post on my blog. I had to wait until today, because I had it in my mind that I didn't have the faith to type the post until it was Friday, because that's when I would find out that I got an A, but I forgot that I actually had to be told that I got an A. The truth is, my teacher could have told me I got a B+, but I wouldn't have believed it. I would have just said she was pulling my leg, or that they made a mistake and mixed up the results with someone else, and not to worry, that they would fix things soon, and my A would turn up.
"Did the examiner say anything about the mark you got?" She asked.
"No." I said.
"Then I'm just really curious," she said, "As to how you knew that you got an A!"
"Oh." I said. My teacher's half question, half proclamation, obviously not being news to me. "Well you see it's like this. At the beginning of this semester..."
posted by Mathieu | 2:21 am
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