One great thing about having the keys to the kingdom, or at least the keys to the music school, was that I could boldly go where the music students couldn’t. We had a room-sized organ in an auditorium that, if I had wanted to, I could have sat down at and blasted out noise to my heart’s content. Not my cup of tea, though, to tell you the truth. I was never much of an organ player, not even the organ stops on my electronic keyboards. Just not my thing. More interesting to me was the arrival in the school during my watch of an antique harpsichord. I don’t remember the specific details, but I do remember that it was outrageously expensive and that the strings were made of lamb gut, or lamb chops, or lamb something, unlike the unnatural strings of modern harpsichords. And I do remember that it was absolutely gorgeous, shiny black and elaborately decorated. And it was off-limits to all the music students without special, and apparently impossible to attain, permission from the authorities. Of course, I just went into the room one night, sat down, and started playing.
I would like to report that this was some sort of transcendent musical moment, but I was no more simpatico with harpsichords than I was with organs. The thing about an antique harpsichord is that you just bang on it, and what you get is what you get. That’s why they invented the pianoforte, an instrument with pedals allowing you to modulate the tone and volume. I do admit that the instrument, when I tinkled the little bit of music I could think of that was remotely harpsichordean, sounded brilliant (in all senses of the word), but I was not moved. On the other hand, there were all sorts of interesting pianos in the building, unlike the practice pianos in the basement which were the VW bugs of keyboard playing, and those were absolutely right up my alley. I know I should have been working, up orla down, but I did know a fine way to treat a Steinway…
I was not a musical prodigy, but I was unquestionably a piano player from the earliest possible days. My mother’s friend who lived around the block had a piano in her basement, and when I discovered it, at the age of three, I sat down and started picking out tunes. I had a great ear, and what I guess was an innate sense of music. I do recall having had someone point out the black keys to me, as I was picking out a tune on vacation somewhere, maybe the Poconos, when I was about four or five. Until that time I hadn’t dabbled in them much; realizing that they were the notes I was often looking for but could never find completed my initial education. I was on my way.
My parents signed me up for lessons when I was in fourth grade, lessons given by my third grade teacher, who was also the church organist and grossly obese. She sat like Jabba the Music Master on her chair beside the piano as she introduced me to written music. She was not the world’s greatest teacher, and I was not the world’s greatest student. I loved the piano, and would play it for hours on end, but I did not get the hang of reading music. More importantly, I never learned any serious technique. After a couple of years I stopped taking lessons, but I never stopped playing. By this point we had acquired a piano at home, and I went back to mostly playing by ear.
I got pretty good, I have to admit. In addition to the ear, which may or may not be terribly unusual considering the number of self-taught musicians out there of all stripes, I also developed an amazing touch. I really did have a good musical sense, and could tease some seriously nice music out of the old box. And I could never pass one by. I would have to sit down and try it out. I was especially fond of upright Steinways. They had the sweetest sound and a most compatible action. A Steinway Grand, on the other hand, could pretty much defeat me. They are meant for, oh, Beethoven’s Pathetique, with lots of sturm und drang, and I was more of a Gershwin love tune type. Still am, come to think of it.
I bring all this up not to toot my own horn (or bang my own keyboard), but because it is sort of germane to the discussion of working in the music school. Maybe I was only sweeping the floors, but I felt like a musician. And I knew that I could have been better than almost anyone in the place, at least the keyboardists, if I had had the proper training. Not that I necessarily wanted the proper training. But it was something to feel wistful about. The few students at the school who heard me play were quite pleasantly surprised, and I think a little wistful themselves, that a naïf could pull it off that well.
My career at the music school only lasted a semester, after which I went back to school fulltime. I don’t think I ever went back into that building again. But the experience stuck with me. Mostly I remember all those students who wanted so much to be musicians, most of whom wouldn’t even make it to being music majors, much less professional artists. And then there were those like the bass trombonist, who only held out hope of achieving what he considered the lowliest position available, primarily because it was the lowest and that was the highest that he could imagine achieving. The music school was the place where adolescent dreams bumped headlong into reality, perhaps more than anywhere else on campus. English majors could get Cs on their stories and still dream of getting published someday. And, you were still an English major, even if you sucked at it. But music students who didn’t conquer the Pathetique, or whatever, did not go on to be music majors. It was over before it started.
And maybe that’s why I like working with high school students so much. It’s nowhere near being over for them. Everything is possible. They will be great musicians, great writers, great whatever it is they want to be. High school lets you dream, and lets you try out your dreams. And some of them actually will come true. Even the most over the top. Maybe my buddy the bass trombonist has worked his way up to first trombone somewhere, and is this very minute blowing his way through a Beethoven symphony on a Vienna stage in front of royalty. Maybe he's even moved on to the trumpet!
I certainly hope so.
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