Once again, I'm attempting to learn the first movement of Mozart's Sonata in F, K332. The only difference is that this time I'm not staring at the sheets without learning a single note (which is ... what I would be doing if I could read music).
This time, I'm really learning it. I've got about the first minute down, or the first 93 measures (without repeats).

I got my hopes up and dashed once again.
I was looking at the requirements for a wonderful music school, Colburn, in LA. The school is non-profit, so it has a very low tuition.
I got excited when I saw their repertoire requirements. They were:

Required A prelude and fugue by J.S. Bach
Required A classical sonata (complete) by Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart, or Schubert
Required A work from the romantic period
Required A work from the impressionist period
Optional Works from the 20th and/or 21st centuries

Which is exceptionally easier than what I was expecting. The wonderful, wonderful thing is that I can see myself completing this repertoire to perfection in two years (maybe one year if I cram it and have free time after high school).
It's... just wonderfully joyfully flower-petal-throwingly incredible to me that this is true.

But I can't READ MUSIC.

If anyone, more talented than I (which is just about everyone and their mums) has an interest in the Colburn school, the link is here: [link]

Sometimes, I feel anger towards my parents for never taking my requests for piano lessons seriously, though I had showed interest since I was quite young. It was always "We don't have the money" or "If you start getting better grades then we will do it" (I've struggled immensely with school my entire life).
Of course I understand that my parents really don't have that kind of money to be spending. However, I haven't the slightest doubt that if they truly knew how much I love music, they would have done it a long time ago.

And the other thing is that my dad, upon hearing me excitedly telling him about the requirements for Colburn, did not take me seriously either, saying (quite correctly) that music is a hobby, and not a career.
But he is a rock musician. There is a world of difference between it and classical. Open your ears and your mind, and listen to some Mozart, and you will understand.

If I could make a career out of it... how wonderful. Even if I make less than I need to survive, I would be the happiest person in the world.

It's quite a stinging feeling when I imagine how incredibly talented I would be right now, had my parents simply allowed me to receive lessons from a young age.
After all my years of loving study, my repertoire is:

Mozart's Fantasie in D Minor (and not completely correctly, at that)
Some video game songs.

Now, thankfully, I am beginning to become more skilled, as I have observed recently. It's just the pushing, learning something harder every time... that really forces open my potential.
But am I good enough to make a career out of it?
If my current skill remains static, then absolutely not.
If I can improve at this rate for two years... then maybe.

The thing is, I have not learned to read, and I have not had lessons. Because of this, I must revert to other means of learning music (namely downloading a midi and putting it into a program which shows the keys you play instead of reading), and I am behind in my progress towards mastering technique, in comparison to someone my age who has had lessons.

However, where I excel is in expression. This is what most people leave out of music, but it is something I am absolutely overflowing with. It is all about the love you pour into the music, and the passion you feel even as you play.
And because of this, if I could learn to read music, I would be able to learn a piece much more quickly, and add so much expression that it could exceed even the level of professional pianists. That is, I believe, my main redeeming factor. Those years of pushing notes in frustration from age 11 to now... they put so much passion into my love of music that I am sure it makes even incorrectly played music sound incredible.

Or maybe not.

I love the music I play, that's what I'm getting at here.
Anyway, Mozart's K.332 falls nicely into the second requirement of the Colburn school -- A classical sonata (complete) by Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart, or Schubert.

There was another piece I was learning, Debussy's Estampes: Pagodes, which would fit into another requirement -- the only problem is which. Debussy's music is arguably both Romantic and Impressionistic.

Anyway... My mind has been simply engulfed in music for a very long time and I've had no one with which to talk about it. I rely, therefore, on this journal for talking to myself and pretending people read it.