The Agony and The Ecstasy

Conventional wisdom says write what you know.  Thus begins the first of what will undoubtedly become many blogs on music and music-making.

I was born a pianist.  I say this deliberately, and in sharp contrast to being a “born pianist”.  In fact, I consider myself a pianist from birth.  My earliest well-formed memories are of standing at my family’s Estey baby grand, reaching up to take full charge of the vast keyboard with my tiny fingers.  It was my first taste of power: the black and white soldiers standing at attention as I randomly commanded each to sing its engineered tone.  I marveled at the sharp edges aligned in perfect order, chiseled to nest together in intimate configuration.  They were aptly hued; such precision needs no color, just the graphic strength of the aligned figures and the sharp contrast of the subtly beveled black against the endless plane of ivory.   Only when the keys are called upon to utter their sounds does color enter the tableau.   It is not a fleck of red here and burst of yellow there, but rather a rainbow flooding the room all at once with its full spectrum of light.  Nothing enraptures like the sound of a piano.

As I got a little older I would teeter on the edge of the bench in my baby doll pajamas, legs swinging and unable to reach the floor, flinging my long blonde hair in a dramatic gesture of mock-artistry.  I covered the length of the keyboard passionately, making child-like love to the notes, coaxing different textures and combinations from each of the eighty-eight.  I didn’t hear a cacophony, only the possibilities of instrument and artist. 

Eventually, and perhaps as a matter of survival, my parents relented and hired a piano teacher.  I was a gifted student—always racing through each method book between lessons hoping to free myself from English Country Garden and Camptown Races in order to advance to something more.  More dramatic.  More difficult.  More, more, more.

With budding artistry, however, came the unbearable burden.  Perhaps among pianists more than any other type of musician there is an unspoken yet universally exploited indenture to society.  It is not dissimilar to the “icon” factor laid unwillingly upon rising stars and sports figures who find themselves being held to the standard of role models. They battle to retain their privacy and personal freedom while everyone just wants a piece of them.  

When you play the piano you are public property.  Everyone assumes that your ability to play is a public good; they want it now.  To make matters worse, there is something that “looks” like a piano almost everywhere you go.  If it has eighty-eight keys—even if it has a palpable coat of grime, the keys are chipped and play only variably, and it hasn’t been tuned in 20 years--the world considers it a piano.  You, the pianist, are expected to conjure up beauty for all to hear—the auditory equivalent of making a silk purse from a sow’s ear.

Over the years I’ve been roused from a sound sleep to perform for my parents’ houseguests, forced to accompany the singing of Christmas carols (which, by the way, I do not know), and expected to provide free entertainment at functions to which I was an invited guest.  I’ve had countless songbooks thrown in front of me to sight-read at large gatherings.  I’ve played in rooms where no one has the common courtesy to stop talking and listen.  In my teen years, I was not permitted to refuse politely any “invitation” to play—no matter how awkward or suboptimal the circumstance.  There is no such thing as a pianist on vacation.  There is no opportunity to be a private citizen just having a good time at a party.  And there is always the same exchange:  “I really don’t have anything prepared.”  “Oh, that’s OK.  We don’t care how many mistakes you make.”  Well, let me be the one to tell you:  a musician takes pride in her playing.  I need to be allowed to refuse politely and with impunity when I don’t believe I can perform something to my own standards.

Sadly, the battle fatigue from this phenomenon almost silenced my music forever.  For over twenty years I barely touched a piano.  I stopped attending concerts because I couldn’t bear the emotional backlash that engulfed me afterward.  It wasn’t until I discovered international amateur piano competitions that I rediscovered what I loved most about piano performance.  I hope to cover that in another entry.

Even in the depths of my despair I’ve always kept music deep in my core; I never stopped thinking of myself as a pianist.  Music is unique among the arts in that it must be conjured constantly.  You “make” music—again and again and again.  Gifted musical artists are a powerful concoction of skill, generosity of spirit, burning desire, tenacity, and really thick skin.  I think that I possess some, but not all, of those qualities.  Having gone to college with Yo-Yo Ma, I know what a true musical calling looks like up close. 

As a Kennedy Center Honoree last month, Yo-Yo said “I try every day to move toward the most difficult thing.”  For him, music assumes a strength and a presence that overpowers human frailty.  It becomes a life force all its own.

I’m not there yet, but I’m working on it.