This is the web-author learner; the photo was taken a few years ago, probably in 1999.
The background Bach isn't mine -- yet. If you prefer silence, you can mute it with the [Esc] key.
A current and major project involves the little piano on the right. It has been in that corner since shortly after it was built in Toronto in 1946. In November 2000 we decided to have it checked and tuned; we were amazed first at how incredibly much dust came out, and then at how incredibly better and alive it sounded.
Personal Musical History
Some friends and I in our late teens had signed up together for lessons in "Beginning Piano for Adults." Having no piano at home, I intended to practice at the piano of another of the group, or in one of the practice rooms at school after classes.
Sure.
Another problem with that exercise was the lyrics of our first tune, "Susie Little Susie," which involved a painful tale of poor Susie's poor geese running barefoot because they had no shoes, and of the cobbler who had leather but no last to use -- all a bit difficult for young males. At least that was one excuse for not practicing. At quarter's end the professor tolerantly graded me "C-incomplete" instead of the Flunk I deserved.
At about that time, late in high school and early in college, I met works such as Bach's Brandeburgs and war horses like his Toccata and Fugue in Dm, and heard records of most of the standard repertoire -- I went to recitals of touring artists like Wanda Landowska, and those of local groups like the Montalvo Quartet and of course the College symphony and chamber orchestras. I also hit many one-night stands of touring bands -- Basie, Goodman, Ellington, Bob Crosby, Jimmy Dorsey -- and heard a lot more of their records on local radio, where all genres from longhair to Dixieland were presented by different stations. I have read that one's musical tastes and preferences are formed largely by exposure and peer pressures during the adolescent years; that appears to be true in my case; my friends and I shared many of these experiences, and we collectively preferred Benny Goodman's clarinet to Artie Shaw's, Tommy Dorsey's trombone to Glenn Miller's, and absolutely rejected bands like those of Sammy Kaye and Freddie Martin. Thus rose snobbery as well as taste! In that connection, I had a difficult time properly thanking a well-meaning older friend who, having heard that I "Liked classical music," gave me a record of "Flight of the Bumblebee."
Some years later I bought a cheap guitar and discovered that harmony was more than trying to sing a second part with someone. I asked friends who played different instruments why the chord had to change when the melody and my ear demanded a change -- their responses ranged from meaningless rote catechisms to over-technical musical jargon that I didn't understand. Frustration remained until a new addition to my instruction books for self-taught guitar demonstrated the Circle of Fifths -- Eureka, and Revelation, and Epiphany, all at once! But even with that better understanding, my casual approach led only to the ability to chord common tunes, and how to transpose tunes from harder keys to C. However, when I heard Segovia or Charlie Christian or Django I was torn between two opposing actions: practice several hours a day or stomp on the guitar wearing heavy boots. I also had an excellent Vega plectrum banjo, in a classic hard case lined with thick green velvet, until its owner borrowed it back. Toss in at different times a couple of ukuleles, an ocarina, a zither, my Grandfather's fifes, some harmonicas (including a chromatic), descant and alto recorders, an Irish tin whistle, Andean Pan-pipes, Bos'n's pipe, bagpipe practice chanter (the full set was like the banjo only on loan -- and there's a totally separate tale) -- Washtub bass, different-weight drumsticks, Chinese tom, small Bongos -- none of these things came with or generated any real competence, but they were or are fun. And, I suddenly remember, earlier on I was bugler for my Scout troop -- as best I recall, there was a bugle but no one to play it until I tried it -- an early lesson in "Never volunteer." But it wasn't hard to learn how to pick out the four notes of the standard calls; furthermore, other Scouts knew better than to complain too loudly or they would've had to take over. I found a trumpet mouthpiece somewhere to replace the shallower version that came with the bugle; the trumpet mouthpiece was not only easier on my feeble lip, it made the horn easier to blow and to produce better tones.
When home recording devices became reasonable and popular, starting with vinyl-coated cardboard disks and turntables with two heads, one for cutting the groove and the other for playback, we learned the sheer delight of making music together -- and ending on the same beat. We were heavier in the rhythm section than in the melody lines -- if we had a voice and a flute we were ahead of the game -- so we called ourselves, only partly facetiously, The Piledrivers. After WWII many of us picked up again with a wire recorder and then quarter-inch tape -- the duets with Mickey Lyman on ukulele and me on gutbucket bass were, uh, indescribable -- except to say, once again, that they were FUN.
Another time with help from my daughters I built a harpsichord from a Zuckermann kit -- I had visions of me tootling on a recorder as my Sheila tinkled away on some shared Bach -- something like this schmaltzy bit from 1898, "The Kreutzer Sonata, " by Rene Prinet :
But it was then that we discovered a most fundamental incompatibility: she can only play from notation, and I only by ear. I certainly knew the every-good-boy-does-fine and F-A-C-E mnemonics, but knowing those bits is a long way from sight-reading, on a keyboard or on a melody-line instrument. And I'm not even mentioning that other staff, lower down. The time with the harpsichord taught us many things, but one of the most interesting is that while the instrument sounds fine on pieces written for it during the Baroque period, it also sounds great on many works by Prokofieff, Kabalevsky, Bartok, and friends -- but you can forget about the Romantics.
The Piano is a Nordheimer, style Minto, s/n 24392, 41 in./104 cm high. It sounds muddy on the bottom and tinkly on the top, but it has all its teeth. Before the tuning I knew the technician Jim Anderson (jim.f.anderson@shaw.ca) was competent when he told us that after such long neglect he would have to give it two tunings several weeks apart. With the delightful new sound we both began again (separately!) to play, or in my case to fool around. I had learned elementary chord structure as well as basic progressions during the guitar period, but the purely linear layout of the keyboard is significantly different from the matrix of strings and frets on a guitar and the easily-learned geometrical shapes of the chord tablatures -- I was surprised and disappointed to discover that I couldn't jump in with both hands and Create Music -- though I was able at last to play from memory "Susie Little Susie," even with variations; but many years too late to improve my grade!
I dragged out some books, tried Sheila's childhood lesson books,
borrowed heavily from the public library, and bought several new
books, along with some
computer-based piano tutorials. A friend loaned me his Roland keyboard
and sound module that plugged into the computer sound card, which meant
that I could play early or late with only headphones. I
read Noah Adams' fine book, "Piano Lessons: Music, Love, and True
Adventures" about the vicissitudes of starting to learn piano as an adult having many
competing interests -- but all these things together only convinced me
that I needed a teacher, more structured learning than I could find on my own --
and more Practice Practice Practice.
Finding the right teacher is always important, but it's particularly true for me; I'm too old to spend hours a day on Czerny/Hanon things or to have my knuckles rapped with a ruler; I have no dreams of Carnegie but I do want to have fun and enjoy "Just Being at the Piano" -- the title of a book by Mildred Portney Chase that accurately describes my status on the bench. I am not comfortable with the words "practicing," or "working" or "playing;" the first two imply drudgery and the last suggests a performance, but "being" is spot-on because it means "existing," which in turn implies a sense of oneness with the instrument in an enclosed private little world -- a oneness that I have yet to find regularly or predictably , although there are encouraging moments - -
The instructor for groups of adults at the local Conservatory listened by my story and suggested that I seek one-on-one instruction, but could offer no referrals. I hit several more dead ends until the same friend who loaned me his keyboard (Rick Macmurchie http://www.novatone.net) suggested a teacher he knew, saying that he thought we might do well together.
Rick was right -- Robin McKenzie (robinm@mail.island.net) has managed to convince me, among many other things, that I can not learn piano in the same way I had learned to strum simple triad progressions on the guitar. From Day One she dumped me in over my head with professional-level Jazz fake-books, the I-ii-V progression, and books ranging from "The Jazz Piano Book" by Mark Levine to Barry Green's "The Inner Game of Music." I'm still over my head, but occasionally I rise up enough for a bit of fresh air to keep me going -- I actually reach into the piano and caress those lovely sounds - -
They're not all lovely; one particularly annoying Catch-22 is that if I play a number slowly enough to get it even approximately correct it's no longer music -- it's rather like repeating a word again and again until it becomes meaningless. When that happens the obvious solution is to change tunes, or physically get up and breathe deeply and then totally relax for a few minutes. Or just noodle semi-randomly in A minor or in different modal scales. Or play a folk or cowboy tune using the guitar triads. But not for too long -- there are more difficult but more interesting chords and progressions whose fingerings need frequent neuromuscular reinforcement. And there are so many good tunes, each one of which can remind me of another, and another still untried let alone learned -- it's easy to see why music is a life's calling.
Some thoughts on all this are here
I was surprised at how important are the attitude adjustments I must make, the mind games I must play, the physical and mental relaxation and a sort of Assume-the-Lotus Zen acceptance I must attain at the piano before Music Comes Out, even music at my elementary level, that feels reasonably close to what I'm after. I have the usual (or greater) difficulties coordinating the two hands, but Robin commented recently that of her students I seem to be more interested in the chords than in the right-hand melody. Don't ask. I suppose it's simply a holdover from the guitar, when I was always trying to find the right harmony rather than picking out the melody.
I rather believe in the osmotic theory of learning, whose essence is that if I buy enough books and stack them around in reasonably well-organized piles, their collective wisdom will insinuate itself into my head. It doesn't really work too well, but I have found that "learning piano" means reading up on a lot of ancillary material -- so that grabbing a book and re-reading a section pertinent to the problem-of-the-moment does help clear the cobwebs and focus the attention -- or conversely, to kick back and allow the focus to return.
A list of some favourite books is here
I recently wrote, for the local computer club (http://www.bbc.org) newsletter, a brief summary of some of the many avenues and blind alleys one can take with the keyboard and the computer; it is accessible here
Anyone can comment to me on any of this stuff at byrond@shaw.ca; I would particularly enjoy hearing from other people who started piano at forty, fifty, sixty -- whatever -- how it went, how it's going, biggest hang-ups, greatest joys
