I’m taking a Piano class this semester. My instructor, Barb Armstrong, is terrific — she really allows us to work at our own pace, and keeps pushing us along. My co-worker Zak had taken it the past two semesters — he learned “Toccata & Fugue in Dmin”; That was really awesome to watch. (Go Zak!)

It’s been 10 years since I had a Piano class, and while I’ve done some self-teaching, I haven’t been in a structured environment since then. I feel this burning desire to learn Piano; Like if I don’t learn to play it I’m going to die. So I find it very emotionally rewarding to be in front of the keys, even if I’m just doing Scales and Chord Drills.

Barb has agreed to let me learn “Time in a Bottle”, by Jim Croce, for this class. I found a MIDI file of it online, and used a software program to convert the MIDI file into Sheet Music. It’s not perfect, but it at least gives me a starting point until I can find the real sheet music. From looking at it, it should be challenging but not impossible. It’s nearly all eighths & quarter notes, is in common time, relatively slow, and stays in one key throughout the whole song. I can already play most of the melody with one-hand.

I picked the song partly because of those reasons, but also because I just really like the song. I most recently heard it on Season 3 of the Muppet Show, where a Whatnot (that’s Muppetese for “random nameless muppet”) dressed up like an old scientist was brewing some potions, drinking them, and growing younger (only to push it too far and end up back where he started).

The lyrics are:

If I could save time in a bottle
The first thing that Id like to do
Is to save every day
Till eternity passes away
Just to spend them with you

If I could make days last forever
If words could make wishes come true
I’d save every day like a treasure and then,
Again, I would spend them with you

[Chorus:]
But there never seems to be enough time
To do the things you want to do
Once you find them
Ive looked around enough to know
That you’re the one I want to go
Through time with

If I had a box just for wishes
And dreams that had never come true
The box would be empty
Except for the memory
Of how they were answered by you

[Repeat Chorus]

The first time I heard this song, I thought it was a very sentimental and sweet romantic tune about a man wooing his lady-friend. But I was curious, so I did a little digging, the real story behind it is so powerful, it practically makes me tear up everytime I hear the song.

“Time in a Bottle” was written not for some amorous interest of Jim, but for his son, A.J. Croce. It was released on his 1972 Debut release “You don’t mess with Jim.” The song rose to fame in December 1973, 3 months after his fatal plane crash. At that time, his son was 2 years old. [Source]

When I think about the lyrics to the song in the context of it being written to his son, rather than to a love interest, the song seems that much more powerful. Sometimes, when I’m rocking Sullivan to sleep, I sing it to him. (He’s too young to realize that my singing-voice only sounds good in the shower or in photographs )

I’m excited to learn this song — I’ll see if I can get a recording up here after the semester’s over, when I have (hopefully) learned to play it all the way through.

Tags: music, piano
Categories: Musings