Piano Man

What, so soon? Sorry, but I couldn’t hold it. When you feel a blog coming, you have to grab a bedpan and let it all out: 

As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a pianist.

(Cue brassy intro to Tony Bennett singing “Rags to Riches” if you must, but that’s all the Scorsese you’re getting.)

It’s the truth. As a kiddie, if we went round to a piano-furnished home, I’d have to have a go. I clamoured for a keyboard, but as effluence outdid affluence in our family, I had to make do with a hand-me-down from my cousins that barely scraped two octaves. So I saved my wages from many a Saturday morning shift at the local corner shop, and in my fifteenth year I was able to purchase a Yamaha PSS-480. Wow! It had a hundred different instrument sounds on it and a Billy Joel demo track that your music teacher was sick of hearing the first nine notes of.

Wah wah wah wahhhh, wah wah wah wa-wahhh..... "Kathryn and Grace, I WON'T tell you again...!"

Ah, it was a glorious bit of kit, but with small unweighted keys and a memory bank into which I would record single lines of melody and play them back simultaneously, it made me lazy. At this time, we were given my auntie’s dilapidated old upright (NB this is not my uncle), and I certainly did used to thump stuff out on that. But by now the most awkward of teens, I didn’t want anyone to hear me, so in a household of six, opportunities were few and far between.

When I fled Planet Thanet for Bath University, I made an earnest attempt to learn. Students got massively discounted music lessons. The teacher in this case was the Uni’s musical director, Robin somebody. I remember three things about him:

1) That he used to wear a navy blue RNLI smock all the time. Yup. ALL the time. (It might have been the only thing that would fit him…)

2) That he had ferociously untamed nasal hair.

3) That he used to sit through my half hour lessons sighing. He didn’t even try to disguise his contempt. Beginner’s anything is very tedious on the ear, but I expect piano is even duller for a teacher as you don’t get to join in.

I had always seen piano playing as some exclusive club, of which I could never be a member. It always seemed like it was for people who were better at life than me. I felt like there was a secret to it that I wasn’t party to. Every expiration of air from this chap only reinforced that idea. He would sit there, smock crumpled, nostrils bristling, making me feel like I was wasting both our times. Any confidence I might have hung on to took a pounding from the practice rooms. You had to go and sign for one of three keys, which weren’t always available, (so you would have walked allllll the way across campus for nothing.) If you did succeed in admission, you’d probably be fenced in on all sides by thousand-fingered Chinese students with no choice but to hear them through the pound-shop-tissue-thin walls. They’d be zipping their ways through a Chopin étude, while you struggled to put both hands together on “Up the Stairs” or “Bear Dance” or some other mind-numbing composition intended for a five-year old. The passion fizzled out. Or at least transferred to my new boyfriend. It was something else to do with my hands, I suppose.

When I was teaching (and single again), I noticed there was a gap between the kids going home and the school being locked, when I could duck into one of the music rooms relatively undisturbed. So instead of doing any lesson planning or – good gracious me – marking, I’d thump out chords and sing along until I got kicked out by the caretaker. I did this so often, I got quite mediocre at it. This dwindled along with my spirits as my depression grew, and I replaced my accompaniment with a guitar, on which I progressed throughout the Jabba Years and beyond.

Then I fell butt-over-nut in love with a pianist and we moved in together. In terms of me playing, it didn’t work the way you’d think. At last there was a piano in my home all the time… but in the room he was working in, or within earshot of it; his piano, that he played beautifully. So once again intimidation held me back, and I spared him from my cripplingly slow attempts at anything recognisable.

Now we divert to my ideal man: The love of my life, my future husband, potentially a father to my twin boys, (though that bit is as uncertain as my desire for motherhood.) Sadly, it wasn’t the chap above. When I split with him, my excellent counsellor encouraged me to write down what I would look for in a partner. Tentatively I began a list… which sprouted legs and ran, taking me with it. Bullet points became sentences to which I added detail, and suddenly, accidentally, I had created the man I wanted to be with. Not pausing to think about how unhealthy this might be, I gave him a name and a family, and, inspired by a photograph of an actor I’d had a crush on as a teen, a whole story about how we got together. I wrote it all down, even read it out loud into my Dictaphone so I could mull it over while doing something else.

I assume you are curious for more detail, but you’ll have to stay that way for now. It wouldn’t do for anyone to know too much about him, for many reasons. I’ve only disclosed his name to two other people! The whole saga will probably be revealed one day, in novel format. So it is possible that he might change my life after all. Until then, I’m keeping him close to my chest, literally, but for ease of reference, I’ll concede a “J”. Obviously he’s wonderful, gorgeous, and sexy; always there for me when I need him; he’s great company, funny, intelligent, kind – everything I could ever want in a partner; he can never hurt me or let me down. Nor can he exist.

Sighhhhhh.

It’s all gone a bit Pygmalion, but with no Aphrodite to breathe life into my creation. There’s an overwhelming sorrow when I remember that we’ll never be together. The actual date we were to have met passed by several weeks ago. I marked it by being sad in a kind of a hopeless way - even if the place in Italy existed and even if I had managed to go there, we wouldn’t have met because HE (Joseph?) ISN’T REAL and I know that. I might be an idiot, but I’m no fool.

This doesn’t stop him (Jonty?) having an effect on my life. In a way he is helping to keep me safe and content in my self-imposed bubble of singularity, stopping me extending emotions to anyone else until I am ready – almost like I am being faithful to him! Inevitably every man I ever meet gets measured up against J (Jeroboam??), and few stand a chance of being remotely close. You might think this is loopier than an arthritic granny’s attempts at crochet, but remember that I have my eyes wide open. I acknowledge that this won’t go on indefinitely. When I am ready, I will let him go. Until then, I will accept that I have real feelings for someone (James?) who exists only in my writing and leave it at that. The brain is a strange organ.

Which brings me neatly back to the piano. (See what I did there?) You see, J (Jupiter???) is a pianist. He teaches youngsters and it’s his passion. My lifelong yearning to play has been built into him. In reality, we select mates because they can satisfy certain needs we have, maybe even bear some of the characteristics we feel we lack. As I have to survive independently, I find that the way to go is self-satisfaction. (Cough.) By learning, I bring him (Javier??) closer to real.

So living alone, with a deaf neighbour, what was stopping me? Not being able to afford an instrument? Nowhere to put one even if I could? “No”s were not answers I was taking. I logged onto Freecycle and found several pianos up for grabs. One was local, so I went to see it. The couple were moving in together and each had pianos, so the older one was to go. When they offered to deliver it, also for no charge, I could see this was one of those “carpe diem” moments, so I carpe-d. Days later, a 1930s flat piano, with a ¾ length keyboard was persuaded into the only space I could spare. What, according to my rented furnishings, should be a fireplace with a flat screen TV above is actually a massive mirror with a piano below!

My audience awaits...

The only outlay I made was for the tuner, who had to charge me extra as it took him such a long time. Like me most days, the instrument is convenient but knackered. It has wobbly keys and some of them like to sustaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin without being asked, but it will do for now.

The beauty of this is that I’m on it all the time. I walk past the room and catch sight of it so I have to have a go. I’ll rattle off a scale on my way back from the loo. (A quick tinkle after a quick tinkle?) I’ll run through one of the pieces I’m working on while the kettle boils. The desire that I’ve had since I was in single figures is finally allowed to burst forth and spur me on. Not only that, but if I’m feeling agitated or unsettled, or need a change of activity; on my way up to an early bedtime – it’s there.

I’m fascinated by the learning process. Our capacity to learn is immense. I watch myself sight-reading a new piece, then taking less and less time to place my fingers for each beat the more I go over it. If I am feeling disheartened, I remind myself that every pianist in the world was once as crap as me. Maybe not at this age, or for such a long time, but we have all had to start from the same place. (Even little baby Mozart…) Hey, would you like to hear how crap I am? Would you? You wouldn’t? Tough. 

(Lucky for you I haven't worked out how to upload audio files to my blog yet.)

(But when I do, there will be no escape...) 

Yep, I’m rotten! I could blame some of it on the keyboard quality but… nah, I couldn’t. It was all me. Please note, however, that I’m a lot less rotten than I was a month ago. I wish I’d realised how effective practice can be when I was a kid. All those recorder lessons where I’d stand red-faced, head bowed, being told off for having only run through my scales the hour before – if only I’d understood how quickly I would have advanced if I had dabbled daily.

Another thing I never realised was how much the choice of pieces affects the urge to play. I love Joplin (Oo Joplin???) and Ludovico Einaudi, so I’m bloody well doing them! I might leave out a few notes here and there while I learn, but a depleted “Entertainer” is better than the full “Waking Up and Stretching” to me, so up yer smock Mr Nostrilbush.

Already being able to read music helps immensely. I could probably achieve Grade Four with my right hand alone, while my left is at Ground Zero waiting for my bass clef sight to kick back in. Averaging it up, I’m aiming to sit my Grade Two early next year. If I can stop laughing for long enough. I’m so thrilled that I get the giggles in lessons because look at me – I’m finally playing a piano! With two hands at once! And a foot!

I’ve wasted a good thirty years NOT playing. I don’t want to waste any more time now. It might be an exclusive club, but at last I can see that I stand as much chance as anyone of becoming a member.

John? Jason? Jermoline? Will you ever guess? What is Le Français’ part in all this? Maybe he’s being saved up for a bedpan all to himself? Brace votre selves for encore de cette merde…