The Piano Lesson
. . . was a TRIUMPH. And I’m so frelling shattered I may not manage to stay awake long enough to bore you to death with the details.
It didn’t look like it was going to be a good day. I’d thought I was getting away with the ME backlash from the food poisoning better than expected but I was wrong. I really wanted a pair of Techno Trousers* this morning for the hellhounds. Furthermore while the great thing about long walks with hellhounds is the thinking time, the really bad thing about long walks with hellhounds is the brooding and obsessing and self-terrifying time. I’m probably this tired because I spent the entire pre-piano-lesson day forgetting to breathe.
Fridays are always bad because I have both the piano lesson and sacred home tower bell practise which is a little too much stimulation in one day for the ME-addled middle aged brain. Today I had an additional contretemps, I mean commitment, ringing a women’s world prayer day service, which they were having to scrabble around rather to find ringers for on a Friday afternoon. If it had been half an hour later I could have pled my piano lesson; as it was I had to agree** and then race back, bolt some lunch at the piano*** and then pelt off . . . for The Piano Lesson.
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.
The story thus far: Music has always seemed to me to be something you’re supposed to share–like stories. This is fine if you’re dragging some wretched, whimpering friend to the opera† or giving people CDs for Christmas. But what if you want to make some music yourself? There’s no point if it’s just you and your instrument of destruction in a soundproof room.†† But I’m one of these really tedious people who disintegrates as soon as there’s anyone listening, including, in my case, my piano teacher. And this seems to me to deny or nullify or abuse or something what music is. I don’t even have fantasies of playing in Carnegie Hall††† but it would be nice to be able to play a Clementi sonatina for Hannah when she’s here.
I’ve been taking piano lessons for three and a half or so years by now and I have gotten nowhere with the disintegration conundrum. The stuff I can’t play for Oisin has gotten somewhat more complex, but I still can’t play it. He claims to be able to hear snatches of music in the clanking discord‡ but in the first place, he would, and in the second place, I think this is one of those extrasensory perceptions good teachers develop.
And the other side of playing when someone else is listening is playing when someone else is playing with you. I can’t do that either, obviously. But I want to. I’m sure it would be fun. Feh.
So here I am, having spent the last fortnight, while Oisin was on holiday, feverishly learning the second part of the first few lines of a little Mozart duet Oisin gave me a long, long time ago, that I’d had a brief assault on, then reeled back with a cry of confusion and bafflement, and crawled off to my solo Clementi sonatinas again. I don’t understand why I was suddenly seized with this notion to have another try at this or any duet, but I was. But I’ve been trying so hard, the last two or three days, to wimp out, that today, when I went to my lesson, I only took the page of the Mozart with me: no computer with Finale on it, no other sheet music, no other music books. Just the Mozart.
I arrived and Oisin wasn’t there. This happens not infrequently and (as he knows) I enjoy having a bash on his Steinway grand when he’s not around. I have a key to his music room and I just let myself in and have at it. My first thought (or ‘thought’) was panic because I wanted to get this OVER with and he WASN’T THERE. But I reminded myself to breathe, and sat down, and played my funny aimless half duet over on his piano which was not at all a bad thing because–just like ringing in another tower on other bells–every piano is different and when you’re easily unbalanced, this will unbalance you.
Now this is where we start losing contact with reality as I have known it. He didn’t blanch or anything when I told him that I’d learnt half a duet and he had to play it with me. He located his book of Mozart duets with unseemly speed, sat down, asked me a couple of sane, performer questions like how fast did I want to play it? I DON’T KNOW! I DON’T CARE! I CAN’T THINK! CAN WE JUST GET ON WITH IT?
And we did. We played it straight through. We played it straight through twice! And here’s the cute bit: he asked me if we could play just the last half dozen bars again because he hadn’t quite got his hemidemisemisquishyquavers right . . . although in truth I was very disappointed that his first part isn’t nearly hard enough. I wanted something that would take his mind off what I was doing and it’s barely worse than what I’m playing, although it has a few trills and other dreadful superfluities.
This is progress. No, this is revolution. It’s hard to explain (especially because I’m so tired I’m falling off my chair at intervals: Bang. Bang. Thump. Bang) why it’s quite so thrilling, except that this playing-in-public thing has seemed so Cask of Amontillado from Fortunato’s point of view.‡‡ And after all hope is gone, and the sound of Montresor’s footsteps has dwindled and died, there’s a door in that wall, and I’m not chained to any staples either.
The downside is that Oisin has given me two more pages of the thing to learn . . . it’s taken me two weeks to learn two thirds of the first page . . . which will still only leave us halfway through the whole piece.‡‡‡ Never mind. This is PROGRESS. It’s also Mozart, and Mozart is always good. And Oisin said, very offhand, you know I really like playing duets. I knew that, I just didn’t think that what we would end up doing would be a, you know, duet. Fancy: a piano teacher having a good time during a lesson. Now there’s a goal to aim for.
PS: And I rang two plain courses of Grandsire Triples inside at practise tonight.
And now I’m going to sleep for twelve hours.
* * *
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wrong_Trousers I want the right trousers however
** Yes of course I could Just Say No. But unless I have a really good reason, like bubonic plague or an infestation of trolls, I won’t. Bells are a community service^ and I think we should ring more occasions rather than fewer. Therefore I’d better ring if I’m asked, hadn’t I?
^ I don’t know if this is true of all towers, but you don’t have to be a member of the church to have bells for your event. You are expected to pay for it, however, and the money goes to the church.
*** I eat lunch at the piano not infrequently. But I’m usually composing, which has long spells of thought and poking Finale to replay and rereplay and rerereplay what I’ve already written. You can get a lot of chewing done during replay.^
^ And the big important news is that I’ve finally got a PRINTER that will talk to the computer with Finale on it. Till now I’ve had to wait to go in to my piano lesson, hand my memory stick to Oisin, and ask him to print off anything I want to be able to see–flicking back and forth on a computer screen is maddening–or anything I want him to play. So, yaay. Also, a new outlet for the 1,000,000,000 reams of second sheets+ piling up in the corners++ is welcome.
+ Second sheets used to be the sheet behind the carbon paper in a typewriter.~ What do you call paper that has only been printed on one side, which is waiting to be turned into drafts of novels, because sometimes slashing hard copy with a red pencil is the only thing that will calm the creative frenzy?
~ Back in, you know, Gutenberg’s day
++ Corners hell, the last 1,000,000 are in the middle of the floor. Peter’s not as buried as I am; he doesn’t write as many drafts as I do, he doesn’t print out as often as I do, and, crucially, he has said he does not give quotes so people don’t send him manuscripts.
† No, it’s great! You’ll love it! Really!
†† Even the hellhounds are better than nothing. I hesitate to mention Peter, because I don’t know how anyone stands listening to someone practise.+ And this week, for example, it has been the same few lines of rather odd and aimless music–the bottom half of the first page of a duet–over and over and over and OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER. And over. Usually I take a run at enough of something to have some idea what I’m ultimately aiming for, and I usually break it up a little more with other stuff. There Is a Tavern etc. Well, I am trying to memorise Landlord Fill the Flowing Bowl. I’m not all about Beethoven and Mozart. But it’s mostly been the ‘over and over’ the last fortnight. I needed to know it better than I’ve ever known anything to have a prayer of getting through it as a duet.
+ Barring Angela Hewitt or Mitsuko Uchida or Adras Schiff or Daniel Barenboim. I think I could stand to listen to them practise.
††† Shudder.
‡ Not entirely unlike a touch of bell music gone wrong
‡‡ http://www.poedecoder.com/essays/cask/#summary
‡‡‡ I hadn’t really registered it said Sonata at the top of the page.
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