/karen/

Scales

Saturday, 05 January, 2008

She sits at the piano and begins to play. Today it's Dario Marianelli's score to Pride & Prejudice and the piece in question is called “Dawn”. She thinks it's the one right at the very beginning when Lizzie crosses the moat, book in hand, and the camera wanders through one end of the house and out the other, but she could be wrong about that. She loves the bit where the arppegios come cascading and tumbling like sparkling water over the staves, but her fingers stumble and fumble their way through that section, stopping and starting—stopping and starting—like some sort of amateur. Which she is.

She sits at the piano and begins to play, and she thinks about how it's not really that hard—no, not really—not in comparison to some of the pieces she used to have to learn for her AMEB exams, those wretched rites-of-passage that usually turn people off music forever. Her musical education was full of potholes. Sure, she did start learning when she was two—when semibreves were watermelons and quavers were cherries and the whole thing was fun—but then she remembers the first competition she ever entered (well, her parents entered for her; had she known better, perhaps she wouldn't have entered it at all). It was one of those things where a hundred little girls in cute little dresses went out the front one by one to play the same two-minute piece, and it seemed to her five-year-old self that the ones who became finalists were the ones who played it the fastest. Was it meant to be played fast? She doesn't remember. She doesn't even remember what the piece was called. She just remembers it was the beginning of inadequacy. So when they moved to Australia, she quit.

She sits at the piano and begins to play, and thinks about those AMEB exams and what on earth possessed her to take piano up again. She had been about nine or ten, and one of her very best childhood friends was learning. It made sense to go to the same teacher, though he was slightly creepy: he was 40-something, he wore knee-socks and he still lived with his mother. She did fourth grade, and got a B. He suggested she skip fifth grade, which she obediently did and promptly failed. Well, not failed; she got a D, but a D was as good as a fail in her eyes, and she quit again and took up singing. Without exams.

She sits at the piano and begins to play, and the ghosts of her all her performing insecurities sit down and play with her. It's not hard—not if you're one of those pianists who plays regularly, who is used to reading scores, who studied music, who understands the language of music beyond the notes on the page. But of course she is not one of those pianists. Sometimes she thinks that God gave her just enough ability so she can serve him by playing in church. At church, people in the congregation tell her how much they enjoy the music. But congregational songs are one thing and scores for solo piano are another. In church, they are forgiving of her mistakes because they don't really matter (and they're mostly covered by the drums); as long as she plays a clear introduction and stays in time, they sing more or less on autopilot with very little guidance. Really, she's not even needed; she's just a security blanket to cover their mistakes.

She sits at the piano and begins to play, and she remembers the way her mother's partner used to wince at the noise (and how she ended up playing just to annoying—the same piece from Chess over and over again, angrily hitting the keys, making the same mistakes in all the same places)—how, at the soiree with one of the school music teachers and her favourite students (she wasn't one of them; she was just a friend who loved music), when she performed, they talked all the way through it—the concert that some lady (the mother of one of the kids in the orchestra where she used to play the triangle because they needed a percussionist and her violinist friend had roped her in) roped her into doing where she played “The Music of the Night” by Andrew Lloyd Webber, while the rest of the participants played Bach and Mozart and Schubert, which made her look like a total amateur. Which, of course, she was. But on the scale between greenhorn and virtuoso, she's really about halfway; she needs to keep that in perspective. Lots of people can't play. Lots of people can play better than her. That's just the way life is. The scale is really the wrong way to look at it because she's not out to compete with anyone; she just wants to be bearable to listen to. She just wants to be able to play the piece the way it deserves to be played. But she hasn't put in the 10,000 hours of practice, so why does she think she should be able to?

She sits at the piano and begins to play, and thinks that the availability of good quality recordings really hasn't helped the situation. The invention of the radio and phonograph caused a 75% drop in the sale of pianos: “As much as people may love music, most of them apparently don't feel the need to make it for themselves.” Why would you when perfection is just a press play away? Sure, few things can compare to a live performance, but tickets to such things are usually more than double the price of your average CD. People's expectations have climbed, resulting in a decrease in motivation to practise—to try, really—especially if one's efforts will constantly be compared to, say, Simon Tedeschi. That could just be her perfectionism talking, but remember our society values and encourages perfectionism, and pursuits like mathematics, gymnastics and music exacerbate it further. There's not much leeway or wiggle room. It's not like writing where the rules of grammar and punctuation are merely tools and guides, not hard and fast rules and regulations. A bad sentence can be a good one in the right context—in the right character's mouth.

She sits at the piano and begins to play, and wonders why the family concert is fast dying out. Was is just a fictional construct invented by Austen to humiliate Mary Bennet at Netherfield? Is it because adults really do despise them and are longing to make a run for the doors like in The Simpsons? And yet there is something lovely about the March sisters rehearsing their play, Lucy Honeychurch entertaining Cecil Vyse's friends in his town house, and Jane reading aloud the poem she wrote to mark the occasion of her sister's engagement in Becoming Jane. Of course, such occasions were also a prime opportunity to show off, and perhaps they also served as a deterrant to any would-be artistes. But she likes the idea of preparing something—working hard on it, polishing it up—to show to the world—to give to the world as a gift. Having someone else want her to play for them, mistakes and all: that is a lovely thought.

She sits at the piano and begins to play. And, in the swirl of the music, forgets. And plays.

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