The Piano

So I sat down at the piano tonight. I’m not sure what possessed me. But there it was, and I was there, and we just connected.

The “piano” is a baby grand that has been around for fifty years or so. It is signed by some famous Metropolitan Opera star – I found the info on that in some obsessive inventory of household items my mother made in the mid sixties. It’s a Baldwin, not a bad brand. She kept it tuned, although the finish on it is a bit rough in spots. It hasn’t really been played in years, and it beckons to reach its potential as an instrument.

I started learning how to play piano when I was about three years old. Mom would put me on her lap as she taught students. My first public performance – that I remember – was when I was about five years of age. I performed at the monthly meeting of the Marthasville Chapter of the Missouri Farmers Association. I even got my name in the Marthasville Record, my first press review. I don’t remember what I played. I do remember being kind of anxious, and I remember my grandmother feeling very proud to have her grandson crank out the evening’s musical entertainment. Ahhh, those good ol’ MFA meetings.

Mom and I didn’t get along well enough for her to be my piano teacher. She was smart enough to realize that. So she signed me up for lessons with the wife of the associate pastor at church. Patty Fitz. I took lessons from her for several years, until my parents had a kind of falling out with the church, and I think the Fitz’s did as well. We moved, they moved, and that landed me once a week in Mrs. Broesel’s living room.

Mrs. Broesel had two baby grand pianos. I could ride my bike to her house for my lessons. I can remember that early on, somehow, and in some way, I broke the middle finger of my left hand. A piano recital was coming up, and I was to play that all-time classic, “Für Elise.” Mrs. Broesel and I worked it out so that she played the left hand part, and I played the right hand part. Weird, but it worked.

What else was weird was that Mrs. Broesel was essentially deaf. Talented, but hard-of-hearing. That’s what we called it in those days – deaf or hard-of-hearing. It made for some interesting lessons.

But I continued to move forward. When I was 12, at her annual piano recital, both pianos were used as I played the Haydn Concerto in D Major on one piano with my mother playing the accompanying part on the other. Mrs. Broesel’s other students were struggling with things like Für Elise. I did all three movements of the concerto from memory.

And then, something happened. High school perhaps. The seventies perhaps. Not quite sure what. But the following year, my natural talent for the ivories found its way into performing a medley of songs from Jesus Christ Superstar. Instead of the lifting melodies and rhythms of Beethoven’s inventions or other classical works, I was banging out “I don’t know how to love him” (please refrain from the obvious irony). Mrs. Broesel was clearly disappointed. It wasn’t long after I decided I was done with the piano. More to the point, I was done with Mrs. Broesel.

My senior year of high school I played in the Jazz Band. In college I took lessons one year, and knocked off Rachmaninoff in an amazing way.

Since then, not so much.

Tonight, there was a thunderstorm. Nothing drastic or immediate, but lightning in the distance, and the rolling thunder loud enough to make the dog bark to protect us against the wiles of Mother Nature. I sat down at the piano, and I started to just play. I didn’t even look at the keys. I just started banging out some notes. When the lightning flashed, I would go heavy on the left hand, creating a theme reminiscent of the thunder. As the rain began, my fingers ran over the higher notes simulating rainfall. I only played about five minutes. It was a creation that will never be heard again. Magical. Whimsical. Dare I say Spiritual.

And then it was over.

When I was done, I wanted to throw open the lid on the baby grand and just continue to play. My style is not particularly elegant, and my melodies are not particularly enticing. But it was fun.

And somehow, somewhere, deep down, that’s what I believe music should be. Fun.