Flashback
My very first piano recital was a disaster.
I was ten, and must have been taking weekly lessons after school for maybe a month, when, one evening, my parents asked me to show them what I had learned so far. Fussy and self-conscious, awkward with burgeoning adolescence, I lifted my four-and-a-half octave Yamaha keyboard (adorned with several stickers, one for each piece I had learned to play) off the desk in my bedroom and walked over to the living room. Still holding the keyboard-nearly as long as I was tall-I looked around for a suitably elevated surface. There was none.
So I placed the keyboard down on the floor, on the gray-brown carpeting of our rented townhouse, in front of the short stretch of wall that stood between the entrance to the kitchen and the doors that led out to a patio. There was no idyllic backyard view to inspire great music; for the moment, nondescript plastic blinds (to match the nondescript carpet and the blank walls) hid twilight from our view. In this unromantic setting, I lowered my keyboard to the ground. Into a convenient outlet went the adaptor, and I sat cross-legged before my instrument.
Tabla, sitar, veena-before all these it is reasonable to sit cross-legged on the floor, with one’s posterior level with the instrument-but not so with the piano. I discovered how decidedly difficult it is to lean forward over one’s own toes, and not, in the process, to bump one’s elbows against one’s knees, and to ignore the thought that this would be so much easier if one’s belly did not protrude so. In short, one really ought not to play the piano in this unfortunate position.
“You’re not really supposed to play like this,” I said to the wall.
“I haven’t really warmed up yet,” I said.
“I’m only just learning this piece I’m about to play,” I said.
“Just go on and play,” said my father, not unkindly.
“I’m just saying,” I said, but I got down to business. With two loud clicks, I turned the dial On; another click and I set the sound to Grand Piano; several businesslike clocks followed while I adjusted the volume level. With no more settings behind which to hide, I had little choice but to move on to the actual performance. The audience waited quietly to my right; I did not quite dare to look.
I could not possibly play without warming up. Was this merely an affectation? I do not know; to this day I have to warm up by playing a scale or two before I can play a piece-more if the piano is an unfamiliar one. And so I played: C major, right hand first and then left. G major, right hand first, then left-a slip on the way down-I missed that stupid F#-an impatient click with my tongue-a second attempt, executed hurriedly, my audience’s expectant silence beginning to alarm me-and on now, finally, to the piece itself, even as an uncomfortable memory crept into the living room and sat nonchalantly on the couch beside my parents.
Earlier that week at school, towheaded Marcus Keller, in my fifth grade homeroom, had asked me earlier that day what I had learned to play: Mozart? Bach? His twin, Stephanie, was currently learning a piece by Beethoven. I had hugged my bright orange piano books (lesson book; theory workbook) to my chest, not wanting to let him see that the book’s docent was a friendly, reassuringly goofy cartoon frog, about as far removed from the dignity of the Great Masters as possible.
Mozart? Bach? Beethoven? Hardly: my latest accomplishment, Horse Sense, was a 2-minute piece inspired by the rolling gait of a horse and the lilting ease of traipsing across vast, open prairies. It called to mind twangy banjos played by cartoon cowboys beside cartoon fires beneath cartoon moons. Not for me the regal sweep of a conductor’s baton, calling the backup orchestra to attention, nor an elegant straight-backed seat at a gleaming black grand piano. I played a keyboard and used orange books with leaping frogs as my guide.
Focused on the shortcomings of Horse Sense and frustrated by my inability to play sweeping, dramatic sonatas, my fingers stumbled over simple arpeggios and my elbows knocked against my knees. An exclamation of impatience-“It’s really difficult to play on the floor like this!”- a sneaking suspicion that my audience was likely thinking that they wanted their money back-a renewed attempt to execute the piece. But the horse was spooked and I muffed the notes again.
“It’s okay,” said my father, thinking to release me (and, I thought miserably, himself) from this misery. “Finish practicing for tomorrow's lesson,” said my mother-meant well but not taken so.
I slunk from the living room with my keyboard, not looking at my parents, bitterly aware that I had disappointed them, that their potentially musically gifted daughter was flub-fingered and fat-bellied and, further, wont to blame her artistic imperfections on poor performance conditions.
I was ten, and must have been taking weekly lessons after school for maybe a month, when, one evening, my parents asked me to show them what I had learned so far. Fussy and self-conscious, awkward with burgeoning adolescence, I lifted my four-and-a-half octave Yamaha keyboard (adorned with several stickers, one for each piece I had learned to play) off the desk in my bedroom and walked over to the living room. Still holding the keyboard-nearly as long as I was tall-I looked around for a suitably elevated surface. There was none.
So I placed the keyboard down on the floor, on the gray-brown carpeting of our rented townhouse, in front of the short stretch of wall that stood between the entrance to the kitchen and the doors that led out to a patio. There was no idyllic backyard view to inspire great music; for the moment, nondescript plastic blinds (to match the nondescript carpet and the blank walls) hid twilight from our view. In this unromantic setting, I lowered my keyboard to the ground. Into a convenient outlet went the adaptor, and I sat cross-legged before my instrument.
Tabla, sitar, veena-before all these it is reasonable to sit cross-legged on the floor, with one’s posterior level with the instrument-but not so with the piano. I discovered how decidedly difficult it is to lean forward over one’s own toes, and not, in the process, to bump one’s elbows against one’s knees, and to ignore the thought that this would be so much easier if one’s belly did not protrude so. In short, one really ought not to play the piano in this unfortunate position.
“You’re not really supposed to play like this,” I said to the wall.
“I haven’t really warmed up yet,” I said.
“I’m only just learning this piece I’m about to play,” I said.
“Just go on and play,” said my father, not unkindly.
“I’m just saying,” I said, but I got down to business. With two loud clicks, I turned the dial On; another click and I set the sound to Grand Piano; several businesslike clocks followed while I adjusted the volume level. With no more settings behind which to hide, I had little choice but to move on to the actual performance. The audience waited quietly to my right; I did not quite dare to look.
I could not possibly play without warming up. Was this merely an affectation? I do not know; to this day I have to warm up by playing a scale or two before I can play a piece-more if the piano is an unfamiliar one. And so I played: C major, right hand first and then left. G major, right hand first, then left-a slip on the way down-I missed that stupid F#-an impatient click with my tongue-a second attempt, executed hurriedly, my audience’s expectant silence beginning to alarm me-and on now, finally, to the piece itself, even as an uncomfortable memory crept into the living room and sat nonchalantly on the couch beside my parents.
Earlier that week at school, towheaded Marcus Keller, in my fifth grade homeroom, had asked me earlier that day what I had learned to play: Mozart? Bach? His twin, Stephanie, was currently learning a piece by Beethoven. I had hugged my bright orange piano books (lesson book; theory workbook) to my chest, not wanting to let him see that the book’s docent was a friendly, reassuringly goofy cartoon frog, about as far removed from the dignity of the Great Masters as possible.
Mozart? Bach? Beethoven? Hardly: my latest accomplishment, Horse Sense, was a 2-minute piece inspired by the rolling gait of a horse and the lilting ease of traipsing across vast, open prairies. It called to mind twangy banjos played by cartoon cowboys beside cartoon fires beneath cartoon moons. Not for me the regal sweep of a conductor’s baton, calling the backup orchestra to attention, nor an elegant straight-backed seat at a gleaming black grand piano. I played a keyboard and used orange books with leaping frogs as my guide.
Focused on the shortcomings of Horse Sense and frustrated by my inability to play sweeping, dramatic sonatas, my fingers stumbled over simple arpeggios and my elbows knocked against my knees. An exclamation of impatience-“It’s really difficult to play on the floor like this!”- a sneaking suspicion that my audience was likely thinking that they wanted their money back-a renewed attempt to execute the piece. But the horse was spooked and I muffed the notes again.
“It’s okay,” said my father, thinking to release me (and, I thought miserably, himself) from this misery. “Finish practicing for tomorrow's lesson,” said my mother-meant well but not taken so.
I slunk from the living room with my keyboard, not looking at my parents, bitterly aware that I had disappointed them, that their potentially musically gifted daughter was flub-fingered and fat-bellied and, further, wont to blame her artistic imperfections on poor performance conditions.