When I was at school and taking piano lessons, I had a friend who was – to my eternal envy – quite a bit better than I was. We shared a piano teacher, though, and that’s going to be my claim to fame forever. I could’ve been this guy.
William was – and is – really, really good. A lot of people learn the piano for a while but never really put their heart and soul into it. I loved it, but I was always the kid who would practise a song two or three times before my lesson the next day. I would sit there for hours playing Queen, or whatever I loved listening to at the time, but I could never really be bothered with the challenge pieces my teacher assigned to improve my skill. William, on the other hand, was determined. He worked and worked at the piano and it paid off. He maxed out the level certifications for New Zealand before leaving school.
For a while after leaving school, William focused on other things, like a lot of us do. University, travel, a career. But I was happy to see, when I logged onto facebook recently, that he’s created a soundcloud account and is putting up recordings! What we’ve got here is an excellent pianist, who I reckon has got serious potential to make it big. There are very few people around who have such control and skill over their instrument.
He’s truly brilliant, so check out his stream. I’ve dropped in a sample below. Some Brahms – you’re gonna love it.
I’m tempted to include a picture here of William at my sixteenth birthday party, performing what we called the William dance. I won’t, though, because I’m not a terrible person. And also he would probably never speak to me again.
