1414 Tickling the ivories

Last night was the final performance of the Lakeside Symphony and the guest artist was a pianist who performed Chopin. It was OK, but my mind drifted. She was a small, pleasant looking woman, 60-ish near as I could tell from where we were seated. Something about her reminded me of the pretty graduate student we jointly hired to teach us piano back in 1966 or 1967. I had purchased a piano with my grad student stipend shortly after we bought our second house. A home didn't seem right without a piano since I'd grown up listening to my talented sister fill our home with music. It was a Baldwin acrosonic in a lovely warm walnut. It stayed with us for 30 years until I finally gave it to my daughter when she bought a home in 1996.

<----It sort of looked like this. The problem was, I played poorly and almost never, and my husband didn't play at all. But it turned out, he'd always wanted to learn, always admired people who could sit down and dash off something terrific. Because I was working at the university and one of my co-workers was an opera student, I think I asked him for a suggestion and he gave us her name.

Sometimes we went to her studio and sometimes she came to our house. But regardless, we were hopeless. I could play the piano, but not in front of anyone, including the teacher. It was worse than math test nerves. My husband who had grown up with no music in the home, none in school, no band, no chorus, no church choir, just couldn't grasp even the most basic concepts and couldn't hear any of the chord changes. She had begun with such enthusiasm, such a positive attitude, and I think we must have totally demoralized her. After a few months, we all agreed to stop the pain.

But my husband does have pleasant memories of that botched attempt--it makes a good story to tell our more musically talented friends. And he remembers a lovely, glowing, vibrant young woman with red hair whose career goal was to be a concert pianist. So when I whispered in his ear last night in the dark that "she reminds me of our piano teacher," I think I ruined his evening.