This One Has a Happy Ending (for once)

I have had a failed relationship that just now I am ready to talk about: the piano. Arggh. It aches me just to talk about it.

I am talking about my incompetence at the keys, my plumber's hands at the ivories, my bull-in-a-china-shop piano playing. Strictly speaking, I am a failure at the piano. There. Weeks of support group have allowed me to say that.

So complete is my failure, that I have joined Piano Players Anonymous- a group that meets every Thursday evening. There, in the basement of a church, we first congregate around really bad coffee and second-rate donuts before we get down to the painful business of recovery. We settle in, sitting in a circle and then some brave soul gets up and begins to spin a very familiar tale.

"My parents insisted that I take lessons."

A collective groan from the group always follows. I've seen grown men have to hide their tears. They usually bend over in their seat and try to shield their faces or pretend that they suddenly need to clean the lens of their glasses. The group draws no attention to this very familiar tactic.

"And no matter how horridly I played, they kept bringing me back each week."

A woman says outloud without realizing: "Me too!" Someone places a comforting hand on her shoulder. We are here for each other, no doubt.

"And every week I mauled Beethoven..."

"Fur Elise!" Yes! We all gasp. Most of us suffered through the first part, but then hit the Ivory Wall at the B section. Our collective pain is like a wave, flowing in sync from one to the other.

"Or Mozart. Schumann. Even the most basic four-part hymns. I just couldn't..."

"Mrs. [fill in your teacher's name here] was so nice, but I know she must have loathed to see the one student she had failed to teach come in that door every week! Years later, I saw her and I swear to you all that she crossed the street to avoid me!"

Silence. Then quietly, the clincher always comes:

"I just didn't get it."

That one never loses it punch. Usually there follows a pregnant silence as we all go suddenly into self-reflection mode replaying the same weary questions: Why didn't I get it? How can your hands do two different things at the same time? How can the man-ape navigate eighty-eight uneven keys?? Shouldn't he be hunting/gathering rather than trying this intricate task? The man-ape can only pound upon it hoping to kill and eat it. This is my plight.

I always think of that scence from 2001: A Space Odyssey when the apes gather around the strange black monolith sensing its power, but can not grasp the meaning.

My own story is hardly unique.

My parents had good intentions. They said the piano was a basic instrument that all musicians had to learn how to play and since I was going to be a music major, the die was cast. The lessons were set for Friday after school at Herbert's Music in downtown Charleston.

Mrs. Lusk was not your regular piano teacher. "Eccentric" doesn't quite cover it. Her laugh was sincere and full, but a high cackle is the best way to describe it. I remember she wore garrish orange-colored pant suits that had with ice cream cone designs all over them. Yes, I am serious. Her claim to fame, according to her, was that she once worked with the Laurence Welk Show and every year they sent a Christmas card. "They're still want me back" she'd say.

She once told my parents that she believed that the Soviet Union was aiming some kind of invisible ray at the United States as a form of mind control. Her excentricities were written off by my parents because of her living conditions. Mrs. L definately had a hard existence and lived hand-to-mouth, residing in the old Holley Hotel. The kind of place that Tom Waits could write a fistful of songs about.

Mrs. Lusk taught me to practice each hand separately and then put them together.Well, it was the together part that always slowed my music reading down to a glacial pace. Shortly into the together part, I'd look over and Mrs. L was snoozing; probably dreaming of some far away place where prodigies dazzled her with Rachmaninoff and Liszt. Mrs. L never failed to fall asleep during my lessons, but I wasn't offended. I enjoyed the momentary freedom away from the Herculean effort at the ivories. Besides, I felt kind of sorry for her having a lamebrain like me for a student. We were both bearing through the unpleasant process, so if she wanted a little nap, well by God she deserved one. One time I watched the clock and she slept solidly for ten minutes complete with vocal fireworks. I'm surprised the people having lessons next door weren't completely disturbed by this.

The best part of the piano lessons was the trip afterwards to Arthur Treacher's-a fried fish place that was on Virginia Street. Fried fish swimming in malt vinegar with greasy "chips" for piano boy- a great reward for a mediocore piano student whose teacher fell asleep. Life is good. Mission accomplished.

My doomed relationship with the piano continued in college. It followed me like a shadow.

In college, I had a nice teacher who tried to get me to play some Chopin. Every week, she would tell me the same story about how Chopin and his love George Sand (a woman) spent this romantic period on an island together and thus was the inspiration for the piece I was practicing. I found that getting her to tell this story over and over again was an excellent way to waste most of the weekly half-hour lesson. She always obliged and never caught on. At the final playing exam, I could see her obvious disappointment when nerves got the best of me and I all but butchered the old Pole's beautiful music. Once again, that together thing threw me.

But there was hope. A hope not founded on competance or the lack thereof, but on reduction. A reduction of the complexities. Counterpoint? Nay, pounding-point. There was one course in college called Functional Piano that made me realize that not being pianistically gifted was not an impediment to enjoying playing. No finger exercises, no sonatas or four-part hymns, but take all the shortcuts. It was piano reduced down to its most basics: left hand plays chords while right hand plays melody. The man-ape gets that. Left hand and right together! Not separate- that hurts man-ape's brain.

This class was taught by Mr. Fitzgerald, who was, shall we say a bit colorful and flamboyant. "Fitzy", as we dubbed him, taught this class Friday at 8 AM. Friday at 8AM is a most brutal time for a college student who was unlikely to go to bed Thursday night. One such sleepless occasion involved a playing exam. I don't know how, but I passed with flying colors. I attribute this momentary success to Foster's Lager.

This one has a happy ending. Hurrah!

I get it from readers who ask, "Why are you always writing about bad things? Think happy thoughts, man." Well, this one has a happy ending.

Truthfully, I have resolved the struggle with the piano not based on competence, but through acceptance of my incompetence. I quit trying to play the piano properly and bring it down to my level: left hand chords-right hand melody. Sort of a guitarist's approach to it. Or simply: man-ape no longer fears fire, he has learned to cook with it.

If you took "pain-ano" (or other) lessons and my story has some ring of truth to it, all I can say is this: if you still regret not continuing playing, you are not alone.

We meet every Thursday night. Donuts are bad and the coffee worse, but the company is good.

Philip Glass: Some Kind of Monster

To some, Philip Glass is a monster. But we'll get to that. Let me share some things first.

For any serious listener, even if you do not like Glass' music, there are two essentials: First, download the Philip Glass interview conducted by Ira Glass (host of This American Life) from Fresh Air's website. This interview is funny, insightful and if you write music, Glass will open your mind and his observations on music will change your creative life.

I have tried, in vain, to get my set-in-their-ways twenty-something students to listen to this interview, but like the rest of the music world, they are already well on their way to being close-minded. It's a shame because they are so young, yet they have shut down an essential process in a creative life: reinventing yourself, questioning tried and true methods of operation, staying open to your creative instincts and a willingness to abandon everything you have learned in order to discover something new.

The second essential is this documentary Philip Glass: Looking Glass, directed by Eric Darmon. From the minute this documentary on composer Philip Glass begins, it's apparent that we are in for a treat. We hear Glass talking on the phone as the camera focuses on various photographs, art works, music scores, scattered around his New York apartment. This is look into the private life of this incredibly busy composer. The film follows Glass around NY, Paris and London. Mixed in are interviews which contain recollections about his early years, his formal studies and we even watch Glass working on a score. A great DVD for sure, but a bit short coming in at 103 minutes. Bonus features include a Glass interview and performance.

Then there's that whole Glass as "water torture" (lovingly described by someone) reaction from traditional classical audiences.Glass tells us that "the world is far more conservative than you can ever imagine" as he recalls the days when he had to play in lofts and art galleries because the traditional concert hall crowd was "terrified of amplified music." Taking refuge so to speak in galleries, he reveals that "in the world of art, innovation is accepted and welcomed" but in music, that is not the case.

Mention Philip Glass to your average classical listener and you'd think that you were talking about the Devil himself. Like he's some kind of beastly monster hell bent on the destruction of Western civilization, beginning with music. Glass (and his contemporary Steve Reich) have to be at the top of the list of contemporary composers most reviled. At one concert, Glass has recalled that tomatoes have been thrown in protest and even struck a few of those on stage. As he slyly states, "You don't bring tomatoes to a concert unless you plan to throw them." Why then pay money for a ticket? Because, to some people, their taste in music is more important than behaving in a civilized manner. Which, ironically, an appreciation of classical music is supposed to be a reflection of being civilized. An irony evidently lost on the classical set.

Glass recalls a time when he and other contemporaries were regarded by the more traditional composers as “primitives”. One time he showed some of his scores to another composer at a radio station in Germany. Although Glass was 31 at the time and had graduated from Julliard and his studies with Nadia Boulanger, the other composer puzzled over the music for a while and then let out this remark: “Have you ever considered going to music school?” Always gracious and with good humor, Glass says that he let this remark go and thanked the man for looking at his music. Glass’ confidence in his chosen path is unshakeable. I admire that.

Even terrible reviews don’t bother Glass and his ensemble. He has stated that “most are hilarious and the ones that review favorably don’t go far enough.” How has he not only survived, but thrived in an environment that is clearly narrow-minded, conservative to the extreme and clearly quite hostile to Glass’ music? In some ways, he has done an “end-run” around the usual classical channels by first engaging the art, dance and writer’s communities. He made his own gigs, in other words. It was only after touring and promoting his music through nontraditional venues that eventually he got commissions to write symphonies, concertos and the usual formats of the symphony orchestra. He is a man who deserves our admiration, even if only for never giving up and keeping to his dreams.

While I would count myself among Glass' audience, and he has truly brought something new to classical music, I sometimes wonder now if he isn't just repeating himself. The Glass style is the most easily recognizable in the world of music right now. But that’s the problem, he always sounds like Philip Glass. Symphonies, string quartets, you name it-always the same way of organizing music. He once said that young composers copy everybody else until he/she finds their own voice, but once you find it, Glass says “It’s hard to get rid of the damn thing.” He has fallen into his own formula without intending to. I like it when he breaks free, like the marvelous Aguas de Amazonia with the Brazilian ensemble Uakti.

One time after about a nine minute piece from Glass’s Naqoyqatsi (A piece used in a national PBS promo. Ok for them but not us, yes? ), a lady called me. She asked me why I was playing Philip Glass. I said that I liked the music. She suggested that I might have hit my head too hard against a wall or something to come to that conclusion. I was in a good mood that day and humor was my best friend because I actually laughed at her rather insulting remark. I then asked her:
“M’am, do you like rock music?”
“No, I’m afraid I’m too old for that.”
“Do you like Indian music like Ravi Shankar?”
“No, can’t say I do.”
“Then that’s why you don’t like Philip Glass.”
There’s no way I convinced her of anything and soon the call ended. But it won’t end there. Never. Nope. No way. I’m always going to hear about it when I cross the line into contemporary territory and it is in my nature to explore the world of music. Can’t help it. I’m just made that way.

Sometimes, after a particularly insulting email or phone call, I laugh and think about what poor old Phil Glass went through. No one has ever thrown a tomato at me.

At least, not yet.

Notable New Discs

A listener asked about some recent discs I've been playing. Here's the rundown and the scooby on them, kids. Enjoy.

1. Bitter:Sweet-The Mating Game. Super cool retro sounds that sound like a lost soundtrack to a James Bond film.
2. Thievery Corporation-Versions. Do these guys ever put a out a bad record? Nope. The 18th Street Lounge boys "dub out" tunes by the Doors, Bebel Gilberto and others. It's pretty dern eclectic.
3. Tosca-Souvenirs. Tosca and Thievery Corp should do an album together because they work the same way, despite the slight difference in their sounds. This is an album of remixes of their release J.A.C. done by their DJ friends. The remixes of cool tracks like Superrob are worth the admission fee alone. There is one joke among the lot. The one original track submitted by Tosca is about 4 seconds long. This should really make the collectors who are often called "completetists" a bit hot around the collar.
4. Gotan Project-Lunatico. This release revolves around the evolution of the tango rhythm and all the variations that technology and musicianship can bring. Great fun, but not many tracks were outstanding.
5. Ursula 1000-here comes tomorrow. Hilarious, fun, cocktail shaking music. Try to resist the fab cheesy tongue in cheek vocals mixed with the smartly played and arranged music. Quit now while you are ahead. If I had a swinging social life, this album would remain in permanent rotation all night. Prince meets Austin Powers in a Manhatten cocktail bar.

Well, that's the short list for now. If you missed the playlists, go here.

Thanks!