I hated piano lessons.
Every Tuesday from 3 til 4:30, I trudged to Mrs. O'Brian's and dutifully played what I had invariably not practiced.
She would give an immense sigh and clasping her hands in her lap in resignation and look at me with great sorrow. You didn't practice. I would hang my head. And why not? she would ask but I had no answer.
Mrs. O'Brian's grand piano took up most of her living room and faced double doors which led to a sunporch, which led to her vast garden. She was a retired schoolteacher, a substantial woman who had been widowed early and never remarried. She taught to supplement her pension and believed only in the classic composers. Once every year, her students put on a recital in one of the school's music rooms and she was determined that we would not embarrass her or the composers she so revered. Sitting there in her sunlit living room that smelled of sachet and flowers, I didn't know how to tell her - that our ancient old upright, painted for God knew what reason a horrific shade of aqua, sat in a basement made of cinder block walls. That it was musty, moldy, nasty smelling and always damply cold and that ten minutes or so into my practicing, the cellar door would be flung open and I would hear my mother's coarse, whiskey coated voice in some version of for Christ's sake, play it right or stop that infernal racket! I loved Brahms and Chopin and especially Mozart, but I would never play any of them the way Mrs. O'Brian
hoped and I prayed not to be included in the recital. I didn't know how to tell my teacher this, better for her to think that I just didn't practice. I suspected that the truth would get me into far worse trouble than my piano teacher's hurt feelings and exasperation.
So we went back to basics, back to scales and exercises and my lessons were extended to include practice sessions. I would play, Mrs.O'Brian would go about her business. I would finish, and Mrs. O'Brian would call out
Again! This time a little faster, please, and watch your left hand, it's drifting. Afternoons passed quickly as she taught and sometimes she would sit beside me as I played the same thing again and again and again. Don't look at the keyboard, she would say firmly, look at the garden. And sit up straight. Some of my fear of the recital eased but as the day drew closer, it was replaced with other, more realistic fears - unlikely as it was, the idea that my mother might actually attend made me physically ill.
In the end though, only my daddy was in the audience and I played passably well. Over ice cream sundaes afterwards, when I said I no longer wanted to take the lessons, he gave me a long, serious look before he said ok.
He didn't ask why and I didn't know how to tell him what he already knew.
Every Tuesday from 3 til 4:30, I trudged to Mrs. O'Brian's and dutifully played what I had invariably not practiced.
She would give an immense sigh and clasping her hands in her lap in resignation and look at me with great sorrow. You didn't practice. I would hang my head. And why not? she would ask but I had no answer.
Mrs. O'Brian's grand piano took up most of her living room and faced double doors which led to a sunporch, which led to her vast garden. She was a retired schoolteacher, a substantial woman who had been widowed early and never remarried. She taught to supplement her pension and believed only in the classic composers. Once every year, her students put on a recital in one of the school's music rooms and she was determined that we would not embarrass her or the composers she so revered. Sitting there in her sunlit living room that smelled of sachet and flowers, I didn't know how to tell her - that our ancient old upright, painted for God knew what reason a horrific shade of aqua, sat in a basement made of cinder block walls. That it was musty, moldy, nasty smelling and always damply cold and that ten minutes or so into my practicing, the cellar door would be flung open and I would hear my mother's coarse, whiskey coated voice in some version of for Christ's sake, play it right or stop that infernal racket! I loved Brahms and Chopin and especially Mozart, but I would never play any of them the way Mrs. O'Brian
hoped and I prayed not to be included in the recital. I didn't know how to tell my teacher this, better for her to think that I just didn't practice. I suspected that the truth would get me into far worse trouble than my piano teacher's hurt feelings and exasperation.
So we went back to basics, back to scales and exercises and my lessons were extended to include practice sessions. I would play, Mrs.O'Brian would go about her business. I would finish, and Mrs. O'Brian would call out
Again! This time a little faster, please, and watch your left hand, it's drifting. Afternoons passed quickly as she taught and sometimes she would sit beside me as I played the same thing again and again and again. Don't look at the keyboard, she would say firmly, look at the garden. And sit up straight. Some of my fear of the recital eased but as the day drew closer, it was replaced with other, more realistic fears - unlikely as it was, the idea that my mother might actually attend made me physically ill.
In the end though, only my daddy was in the audience and I played passably well. Over ice cream sundaes afterwards, when I said I no longer wanted to take the lessons, he gave me a long, serious look before he said ok.
He didn't ask why and I didn't know how to tell him what he already knew.
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