A Struggling Pianist's Ode to Rosin

Oh Rosin, sticky resin, you're in my thoughts today.
How I long to have your amber jewels to use to help me play.
You see it's playing black keys that gives me such a fright,
for when I go to play the black, I end up playing white.

Case in point, the piece I'm learning, A Major is the key.
Though my finger aims for C#, it slips off onto D.
C#'s are not the only keys I fumble with a thud.
What are written to be clean, crisp chords sound much more like... mud.

Oh, they say it isn't you, it's more practice that I need
to play those black keys soundly at metronomic speed.
That may be true, but as for now it's dreadful when I slip.
A little rosin on the pads might help to make them... grip.
(I wouldn't feel so foolish in what I think today
if I'd only seen a Rubinstein rosin up to play.)

You must know this is tongue in cheek
and nonsense through and through,
yet, in my weaker moments, I admit, I think of you.
So, Rosin, sticky resin, one question of you lingers...
If you're found on violinists' bows and prima ballerinas' toes,
why not on pianists' fingers?


c 1992 B Philp