Features

Good books, old friends

Details

By Kara G. Kvasnicka

Tuesday, November 29, -0001

Hits: 269

What starts as a simple fascination for the innumerous noises this instrument can make usually develops into a healthy appreciation for the stirring, often beautiful music some talented human beings draw out of it.

Awe of the piano's stately presence among not just other musical instruments but other pieces of furniture seems almost to be born in us.

Piano lessons to try to master its complexities become a memorable if not always pleasurable part of many people's childhood.

I took piano lessons at the Flint Institute of Music for about a year during my teens. My family had moved into a house that came with an upright player piano in the basement (no former owner could figure how to move it out), and it was logical that either my brother, sister or I should learn how to play it.

Since my brother and sister had other intense after school activities (my brother played hockey and my sister the flute), I was the lucky candidate. I started with a great deal of enthusiasm and dreamed I would be good enough someday to give impromptu performances at social gatherings, if not become a concert pianist.

But practicing was my Waterloo. There was always something else to do – homework or a good book to read.

In my defense, I also had to fight to use the piano as an instrument. My brother was always turning the piano bench over on its side to serve as a goal for his signature ear-splitting hockey practice sessions – he shoots, he scores, the piano boings resoundingly. (I should have made a point of learning to play the theme music to "Hockey Night in Canada.")

So after a year, in which my most significant achievements were memorizing a rousing rendition of "Porky Pig Goes Ice Skating" and surviving a recital in a room full of total strangers and my mom, I gave up.

I half thought I might take it up again later in life, as an adult, when I naively thought there would be fewer distractions. Well, I haven't yet.

But Noah Adams, host of National Public Radio's "All Things Considered," did. In Piano Lessons: Music, Love & True Adventures (Delacorte Press, 1996, 250 pages), he chronicles his experiences in continuing as an adult where he left off as a child in learning to play the piano.

Adams writes in the same voice in which he delivers the evening news on "All Things Considered" – authoritative yet soft and hypnotic. Like most of his NPR colleagues, he has turned into an art form the ability to make people listen to whatever he has to say even if he is speaking at length on an unlikely subject like piano lessons.

Like me, Adams had taken some piano lessons as a child but soon lost interest: "I was supposed to practice after school, but there was always more fun outside, and I was never ready on Saturday mornings when I walked the three blocks to my teacher's house."

Over time, as his appreciation for music grew and he had seen performances by a diverse array of pianists, including Marian McPartland (jazz), Liz Story (New Age) and Andre Watts (classical), his interest in playing the piano gradually rekindled.

Finally, at 52 he made a firm commitment to reacquainting himself with the instrument by plunking down $11,375 for an upright Model 1098 Steinway.

In chapters marking each month of the year, Adams logs his progress and the goals he hopes to accomplish as a pianist. He hopes to become skilled enough to play "Traumerei," a difficult Schumann piece, for his wife and versatile enough to play boogie-woogie blues with the best of them.

Since his schedule does not allow for traditional weekly lessons, Adams tries self-teaching methods. He gives humorous accounts of his varying degrees of success with the computer-aided Miracle Piano Teaching System and the David Sudnow learn-by-ear method.

Inevitably he seeks guidance from real, live human beings at a piano camp in Bennington, Vt.

Fittingly, he subtitles the chapter in which he describes his participation in Autumn Sonata: "Salvation at a music camp, but they make me play in front of people." He perceptively contrasts the cozy intimacy of playing just for one's teacher with the nerve-racking queasiness of performing before a group.

Ironically, Adams' greatest challenge in mastering the piano as an adult is the same he faced as a child – finding time to practice. Listing all his professional and personal commitments, he says frustratedly, "I don't know how people with children get a single day accomplished."

The difficulties adults face in pursuing any creative endeavor outside their job is really the underlying theme of the book. Adams recalls an interview with John Grisham marveling at this lawyer-turned-bestselling-author's ability to make time to write his first novel while carrying a full case load.

With wry wit Adams conveys the tedium of practicing an instrument fed by the invariable human inclination to procrastinate. However, he relieves the tedium by digressing from his practice sessions to give historical background on the instrument and some of its greatest masters. He also interviews piano teachers, players, makers and sales people to understand their real and metaphysical connections to this instrument.

Unfortunately, Adams never really convinces us that he has found any joy in rediscovering the piano. He never seems to relax as much at the keyboard as he does in the chapter in which he describes sailing in Maine with his wife.

Likewise, his personal anecdotes are not as effective or insightful as his historical recollections and interviews. Even his description of his surprise Christmas Eve piano recital of "Traumerei" for his wife seems more contrived than moving.

Adams could have used more time to clarify his narrative just as he could have used more time to practice the piano. But he is an empathetic voice for adults who long to pursue an avocation for which they never seem to find the time.

Maybe I'll drive over to Mom's house, play ball with our golden retriever Clancy and then sneak down to the basement to find my old piano books.

After all, what are the odds that my brother will also come home to play with the dog and then determinedly descend the stairs to work on his slap shot?

Kvasnicka, a former East Village Magazine news editor, has been the magazine's contributing editor and research consultant since 1989. She has a master's degree in information and library studies from the University of Michigan and works for the Genesee District Library.

• < Prev
• Next >