Lessons in the Key of Life : My Own Piano Lesson Experience by Rachelle Allen |
My grandmother died when I was five, leaving my mother an inheritance substantial enough for the purchase of a full-length mink coat for herself with enough left over for a Wurlitzer spinet piano for me (on substantial markdown because it had only 86 keys instead of 88).(A.) Glory Days I began lessons with Mrs. Brenner, a peppy, smiling woman so kind and nice that, during Recess at school, whenever I played House, I became her. I was always Beverly: beautiful and nice to everyone. Unlike other children in our teeny town in 1961, and long before it became as common as it is today, I lived in a two-career family. Both my parents worked not only outside of our rural home, but 25 miles away in what everyone I knew referred to as "The City." And, because all our relatives lived hours away, it was arranged that I would go to a babysitter's before and after school each day. My new caregiver was a scowly-faced woman with an unpredictable love of yelling. In her dark and foreboding living room, there was a huge, old, upright piano with keys like a set of decaying dentures. None of her teenagers ever touched it, so I had carte blanche to practice on it every single day. In no time, I discovered that none of her other wards --a sweet brother and sister whose mom had died, a whiny girl from next door with stringy hair, and even the babysitter's bossy six-year-old daughter-- was allowed to disturb me when I was at the piano. I noticed, too, that as long as I was playing, my babysitter seemed a lot happier, and on many days, she even hummed along from the kitchen. She never said so, but I always wondered if the piano had been hers at my age because they both seemed so old. (To my six-year-old mind, that calculated to close to 30.) The school bus dropped me off there at 3:30 p.m. every day, and my father arrived to retrieve me at 5:15. Needless to say, with nearly two hours of practice five days each week, I excelled at piano quickly and lived for my Saturday piano lesson time when I could show Beverly Brenner all my newfound skills and she could continue to shower me with encouragement. Lesson: Even a skill you acquire under duress is still one you get to keep forever and use to your advantage. (B.) Dark Days The summer before I started third grade, though, Mrs. Brenner's husband found a much better job in Philadelphia and took her away from me. I was bereft. Also that year, my mother announced that I would be going to a different babysitter's before and after school. (In our house, elaborate communication was a lost art. Parents gave directions, and offspring followed them. It was a simple, efficient operation.) The new babysitter turned out to be even scowlier-faced than the first, yelled substantially more, and, worst of all, had no piano. Not that it mattered, really, since I no longer had a piano teacher. Thankfully, I began flute lessons at school that year, so that filled my musical void to a satisfactory enough degree. Since I could already read music, this new instrument came easily to me, and I absolutely loved the sound of it and practiced constantly. Like Mrs. Brenner, my band teacher praised me often. The week before fourth grade began, I heard my mother lament to my babysitter that she wished she could find another piano teacher for me because I just didn't seem as happy since Beverly Brenner left. That afternoon, my babysitter mentioned to my father that the husband and wife who lived next door were piano professors at the internationally acclaimed music school in The City and that, if he wanted, she could ask them if I could take piano lessons with them. My mother was elated, but I could tell by his expression that my father wasn't sold on the idea. He said he'd run into them several times at my babysitter's house when he was picking me up and found them to be pompous and stuffy. I wasn't sure exactly what that meant, but I gathered it wasn't a particularly ringing endorsement. Nonetheless, my mother's enthusiasm won out, and lessons began. In no time at all, the meaning of "pompous" and "stuffy" became painfully clear to me. "Are those the clothes you actually wore to school today, Dear?" the husband asked me one day. "No, these are my play clothes," I answered. "Your play clothes?!" he repeated with a sneer. "Where do you play--at the Town Dump?!" That gave him and his wife a really good chuckle. Another time, he said, "You are very thin and pale," which made his wife ask, "Does your family feed you enough?" I always felt like Oliver Twist at their house. Plus, I could never please them musically, either. Whatever I played was never fast/slow/loud/quiet/smooth/detached "enough." It seemed to me as if they were never even remotely satisfied with my work the entire time I studied with them. I left their house each week feeling like the stupidest, most inept student on the planet. I spent two grueling years with these people, never once complaining about them to my parents. Stoicism was a highly prized commodity in our house, and I was convinced that saying my feelings were being hurt every week was not going to be a good enough reason, in my parents' eyes, for me to be allowed to quit. Of course, seeing this now, from an adult's standpoint, I know how misguided that thinking was. I cried myself to sleep each night for the loss of my beloved Beverly Brenner, who had found me brilliant and stoked my talent. The last straw was the day the husband chided, in his ever-patronizing, highly sarcastic way, "Well, as long as you're being barbaric enough to chew gum during your piano lesson, the least you could do is chomp it on the beat." That was 'It' for me. Barbaric?! I played two instruments, took ballet lessons every week, and was a Junior Girl Scout in good standing. Barbaric, my ass! I stopped practicing from that lesson on because the piano seemed joyless to me now and because pleasing that man was the very last thing I ever wanted to do. So the next week, when my mother reminded me, before leaving for my babysitter's, that I needed to take my piano books with me for my lesson that day, I glowered at her, yanked my books from the piano, threw them to the floor, and screamed, "I am NOT taking piano lessons anymore, and I do not care what you say or what you do to me! I. AM. THROUGH!!" The woman was absolutely flabbergasted. I was the youngest of her four children by 12 years, quiet, conscientious, obedient, excellent in school, and, unbegrudgingly, everyone's favorite. Yet, without warning, here I was being defiant in epic proportion. "You have to finish out the year," she said, still visibly shaken. I immediately did the math: four more weeks of torture. "I'M NOT DOING IT!" I screamed at her; and, to my amazement, with no subsequent discussion on the matter, she conceded. Lesson: It is not brave to endure perpetual derision and pain. With as many life-affirming alternatives as there are in the world, it is both unnecessary and foolish. (C) Victorious Days The following September, I began Junior High; and, after several phone calls to the school, my mother learned that the wife of the new band teacher from Boston taught piano. "You'll be taking lessons from her," my mother informed me. And because I missed playing so much, I decided I would be willing to follow parental directions once again. My new teacher wasn't Beverly Brenner --no one ever would be-- but she was kind at all times, even when I gave practicing a low priority to my burgeoning adolescent social life. She never stopped expecting me to be excellent or showing me how to achieve that status as she went over fingerings with me, provided reams of music theory pages to complete each week, and challenged me with piece after piece that seemed impossible to master. But when it came time to audition for college, I tested out of the first two years' worth of piano pedagogy and received a hefty scholarship, the only Vocal Performance Major/Piano Minor to have done so in years, I was told by the head of the department. Lesson: When teaching is cultivated with encouragement, understanding, and high-but-achievable expectations, there is no end to the blossoming it will render.
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Rachelle Allen
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