The tune he did not request

An original literary non-fiction-style account of playing an accordion at a family gathering.

My uncle had asked me to bring the accordion to his birthday lunch. I practised the tune he always requested until I could play it while looking out of the window. When we arrived, I left the instrument in the hall where everyone would have to step around its case. I was pleased to have a useful reason for being there.

After lunch, my uncle said that perhaps we could have some music. I settled the straps on my shoulders and began the familiar tune before anybody could suggest another one. Halfway through, he started talking to my cousin about a bus route. I played more loudly. He leaned closer to her, and she moved her chair.

When I finished, several people clapped. My uncle asked whether I knew the tune his mother used to hum while doing the washing. He could not remember its name. He sang a few uncertain notes, stopped and began again. I told him that I would need more than that. He laughed and said that so would he.

My cousin picked out the fragment on the piano. He corrected one note, then changed his mind. I found a possible ending on the accordion, and he shook his head. For several minutes, there was no performance worth applauding. There were pauses, arguments and an increasingly doubtful suggestion that the tune might have come from an advertisement.

We never identified it. Later, my uncle asked me to leave the accordion case open while we had tea, in case another part returned to him. I had brought a polished answer to a request I thought I understood. The tune we could not finish had made him listen more closely than the one I had practised, and it had made me listen too.

Explain why the unfinished tune becomes more important to the narrator than the practised performance.