
When I was very young, my mother enjoyed teaching me how to sing. She had a beautiful high soprano voice, and she spent a lot of time grooming me to be able to sing the high notes with her. In fact, she used to test my range. When I was 4 or 5, I remember singing the scale up to the top note of our little piano. Then Mom would say, "If there was another note, what would it sound like?" Then I would sing the next, and the next, and the next right off the end of our piano.
She often got frustrated by not having enough notes, especially in the bass. Mom practiced some pieces that really needed the doubled bass. And sometimes when she and her students played duets, they would run out of notes up high, too. At that point, she had to make arrangements to continue lessons or rehearsals at the Church or someone else's house that had a full-sized piano.
We loved that little piano, though... when we got a chance to play it. Mom taught or rehearsed using it so often, my brothers and sisters and I rarely got the chance to use it. Until one day...
My brother turned 12 and started going to Priesthood meetings. He came home and reported that the singing was dismal. Nobody could play the piano, so they just sang a cappella, badly out of tune. Then he announced that he was going to learn to play some hymns for Priesthood meeting. Bob was very smart and had already learned how to play the trombone, so he figured he could surely learn one new hymn a week on the piano. He made a list of a few hymns to learn.
Bob decided that since he could already read Bass clef, he would work on the left hand first. He also decided that I should help him out by playing the right hand part in Treble clef. Then, once he learned the left hand, we would switch so he could work on the right hand. Later in the week he was ready to put both hands together. But while he played both parts in the mid register of the piano, I went ahead and played 8va. Little by little, he accomplished his goal.
I guess we impressed Mom by our efforts. She actually set aside time for us to play on our little piano. But that didn't last that long. After Bob got good enough, she was back to using the piano for herself and her students most of the available time. We actually had to beg for time at the piano! (Yeah, that's a musical family thing...)