Inspirations and Surprises
I share a house with several others. We’re all friends (and musically inclined!) and most of us have known each other for years. We all have lived other places before coming to call our current house home, and because of that, we all have a lot of stuff. Furniture, knick-knacks, cookware, musical instruments, etc can all be found in duplicate or even triplicate. The house was becoming cramped and very cluttered with so many things. To help remedy the situation we re-arranged, put some things in storage and I brought my full size electric piano to a friend’s house.
I showed up at his house and the pure glee on his face when he saw the piano and heard me say, “I thought I would ask if I could keep this at your place for a while.” was just humbling. I’ve had this piano/keyboard for longer than I’ve had this friend! I know I take it for granted, and this was a reminder of how lucky I am to have it. The first thing my friend did was clear a space for the keyboard. He set it up and sat down to play. He and another friend (both of whom have never had piano lessons, unlike me with 13+ years of lessons) went on the internet, looking for tutorials on how to play The Imperial March from Star Wars (which is outside my frame of reference, but I hear it’s pretty cool), the Peanuts song and a number of other TV and movie related pieces. After a while I decided to wow them with my finesse on the keyboard and as I sat down I proudly announced, ”I’m going to play The Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven (the actual name of the piece is Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor “Quasi una fantasia”, Op. 27, No. 2, but it is also known as The Moonlight Sonata). It’s one of my best competition and performance pieces.” And then played something that was not the song I intended, in fact, I don’t even know what it was! After several attempts I conceded that I no longer had the piece memorized and needed the music to remind myself. But I hadn’t brought my sheet music with me, that was still at home. I took a turn on the internet and found an audio file of the song and listened carefully. I sat at the piano again and worked out the first few bars, my fingers moving toward the keys I knew I was supposed to play but I was still unsure as to which keys were the right ones and I stumbled and painfully made my way through a really unrecognizable version. What do you do in that instance? Try again of course! So I listened again to the recording, this time playing along on my piano. I still didn’t have it perfect but it was much better than my original attempt.
My friend, following along with the Beethoven theme, brought up Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor, Op. 13, or Sonata Pathétique asking me if I could play it. This composition continues to defeat me. I can muddle my way through it, but I am not anywhere near to performance ready with it, nor am I playing it the way that I’m sure Beethoven himself meant it to be played. Just listening to this piece makes me green with envy. Someone else can play this? It inspires me to practice and finally master this beast of a song. From Sonata Pathétique we moved on to Rachmaninoff (I sure have been into him lately!), Tchaikovsky and Rubenstein, just to name a few. My friends were surprised at how excited I became talking about these different composers, their relationships with each other (Rubenstein was an inspiration to Rachmaninoff and tutor to Tchaikovsky), and their music. I don’t usually talk with my friends about classical music or composers. Our conversations usually center around modern day musicians (“Hey, did you hear the new album by…” is a common start to a conversation in my social circle). It was refreshing and fun to talk about the differences between composers and the periods or styles they composed in. There are so many differences to discover! Even more interesting to me is all the connections and relationships that so many of these musicians had with one another. My friend asked me how I became interested in classical music and I explained that my musical tastes were really influenced by my piano (and voice) lessons that I took when I was younger. My teachers introduced me to different composers, different musical styles and encouraged me to continue to explore on my own. It seems that every day I’m reminded of how much I took from my piano lessons, and many times what I learned isn’t even related to the piano! Have you ever noticed that? I’d love to hear!
Remembering My Favorite Teacher
My favorite piano teacher’s name was Patti. I remember being scolded for not cutting my nails, praised for mastering an assignment and feeling nerves race around in my stomach as I was called up to perform in recitals. I had a number of teachers before and after Patti. They were good teachers. Actually, they were more than good teachers, they were fantastic teachers.
So why was Patti my favorite teacher? I can think of a number of reasons but I’ll share just the top three:
- She took my interests into consideration. This didn’t mean I got to play every song I wanted to or that I didn’t have to complete exercises or assignments I disliked, but I know that my musical tastes were something she thought about when selecting pieces for me or choosing which direction to take me next (do we explore jazz or compositions of the romantic period?). It is so evident to me now in retrospect that I am amazed at how much time and energy she put into her students. I know I was not the only one to benefit from her attention to detail!
- She held me accountable. I had more lessons than I would like to admit to that ended in Patti telling me she knew I could do better or that she could tell I hadn’t practiced my assignment the way she instructed me to. As a kid I was full of clever tricks on how to “get out of” things I disliked such as practicing piano and household chores. I would set the practice timer for half an hour and go to the piano. I would adjust the bench, I would take an extra-long amount of time reading over my assignment book. I would shuffle through my lesson books “trying to find the right page”. I played Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater more times than I could count (but only when my parents weren’t home!) to “warm up”. And once I had all my pre-practice preparations taken care of I would play each assignment once, twice, maybe three times before moving on to the next assignment. I even had weeks where I would do nothing but play old assignments and Heart and Soul instead of my current assignments, which forced me to sightread my assignments at my lessons. Some weeks I got away with it, but more likely was that I got caught. Oh, the shame of being caught! Eventually Patti made me realize that the point of practicing was to get better at playing piano and when I cheated at practicing I was only cheating myself out of progressing to exciting new skills and music that was more interesting and fun to play.
- She challenged me to improve. This is close to holding me accountable, but different in that Patti would use new pieces of music like a bribe. “If you master this concept you can finally play that Rachmaninoff song you’ve been waiting to learn” was a common refrain (well, the name of the composer changed depending on my skill level at the time). I would like to take a moment to point out that Rachmaninoff had gigantic hands and an extraordinary amount of talent, and for me his compositions are some of the most difficult pieces I have ever worked on. I have not mastered a single piece of his to my satisfaction and it frustrates me to no end. Patti’s faith in my abilities and (at times) the sheer will she used to push me to do better and better have molded me for my lifetime. She is the person I credit with showing me how to focus on fixing rather than focusing on the flaw.