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Piano Lessons
When I was in second grade my mother went to the hospital for some
operation and while she was there she had an additional medical
emergency. In those days there was no such thing as medical
insurance and so this put our family into significant debt. We could
no longer afford piano lessons, but my mother made an arrangement
with her friend that I would get piano lessons, and in exchange my
mother would iron her friend's family's clothes.
The following year my teacher asked me to play some particular piece
I had been practicing and I said no, I didn't want to. I thought it
was perfectly reasonable to refuse her request but she didn't. She
thought I was being too familiar because she was my mother's
friend. So she suggested that I change to another teacher. That is
how I came to study with a woman named Louise Reeves. It meant my
parents had to go back to paying money for lessons, but they were
willing to do that. People said I had a talent, so my parents
sacrificed for my benefit.
One of the pieces Mrs. Reeves taught to her students was Malaquena by
Ernesto Lecuona.
(I looked on the web for a piano version to link to, but I couldn't
find one.
Here is a
guitar version.)
I loved that piece and it was my goals for several years to learn to
play it. Eventually I did. I do have an analog recording of myself
playing it. Maybe some day I'll digitize it.
It was around this time that I started watching the "Young People's
Concerts" on TV, led by Leonard Bernstein. These
programs deepend my understanding of the structure of music and
enhanced my love of that music.
When I was in fifth and sixth grades my school let us listen to a
weekly radio broadcast called the "Standard Hour," so called because
it was presented (comercial free) by the Standard Oil Company. It was designed
for school children and featured various classical-music topics.
Some of my classmates thought the program boring, but I loved it.
In seventh grade I took Boys Chorus as a school class. On the first day of class those
of us who could play piano were asked to audition as the accompanist.
It turned out my sight-reading skills weren't good enough so I was
passed over for another boy. I think it turned out for the best,
since it gave me the chance to learn how to sing on pitch and to sing
harmony--I already knew how to play the piano.
When I was in high school, my father decided he wanted to buy an
organ. (I think I got some of my musical abilities from him,
although he never formally studied music.) In order to buy the
organ, he would have to sell my piano. The organ came with free
lessons, which he gave to me. The woman who taught the lessons had,
by some bizzare co-incidence, the same first and last name as my
piano teacher. However, she was not go good a teacher, at least for
me: I had definite musical ideas that I wanted to express. So after
the free lessons were used up, I went back to my original teacher,
who, in fact, also gave organ lessons.
I remember, while studying the organ, learning the
"Little Fugue" in g minor by J.S. Bach.
I also remember that my teacher asked me to
use that piece to give a short lecture at a recital on the fugue
form.
Before too long, however, my
father realized I was happier with piano and bought me a new one. I
then went back to piano.
I continued taking piano lessons until I was in college. Then I
joined the army. Just prior to my enlisting, my music teacher
arranged a one-boy recital for me. I played most of the pieces I had
learned in recent years. Of course half the audience was members of
my family, but there were other people there as well. I must confess
I didn't play that well; I made too many mistakes. I was just too
busy getting ready to join the army to practice enough. Or perhaps I
was too confident. Or too nervous during the performance.
Once in the army, I stopped playing piano. I still listened to
music, of course. I had a radio and a record player that I bought.
I remember that my barraks mates secretly through one of my records
away, because they couldn't stand to listen to it: it was atonal
eletronic music, and fairly strage to say the least.
Eventually I was stationed in Okinawa. I was married by then so I
lived in a private off-post appartment with my wife. We rented our
furniture and the rental company's inventory included pianos so I rented one. I
fooled around with it some, playing old pieces and improvising
strange music into a tape recorder. But I never put much energy into
it.
Once we left Okinawa, I was piano-less until my oldest daughter was
around six years old. At that time she began taking piano lessons,
so we bought her a piano. For a while I played duets with her for
recitals, but her skills have since exceeded mine.
Part of the music I collected was the vendor of a kind of toy
shakuhachi made out of what appears to be plastic water pipe. Now,
when I hear that recording I am
amazed that there was a kind of telepathy between us, since I didn't
speak any Japanese and he didn't speak much English. He was playing
modern popular music, whereas I wanted him to play Japanese folk
music. But I didn't know how to ask. Just at that point he asks
someone else standing there, "Eigo de 'minyo' nan toyu?" Which I now
know menas "How do you say 'folk song' in English?"
Once I decided I wanted to learn to play the shakuhachi I needed to
find a teacher. I didn't think I could understand enough Japanese to
study with a Japanese teacher. Then I went to a concert given by
John Neptune.
He plays a wide range of music, including jazz, on the
shakuhachi. I telephoned him to talk about lessons. He did indeed
teach. I asked him how hard the Shakuhachi was to play. I gave this
analogy: If you take someone who has never seen a piano before, and
say, "here play these three notes," the result (assumuing you picked
harmoneous notes) will be quite pleasing. On the other hand, if you
take someone who has never played violin before and tell them, "just
draw this bow across these strings," the result can sound like you're
torturing a cat. Where, I asked, did the shakuhachi fit on that
spectrum. He said it was beyond the violin. The first time you play
a violin you will make a sound, although not necessarily a pleasant
one. The first time you play the shakuhachi, he said, you won't make
any sound.
Neptune taught lessons according to the traditional Japanese style of
scheduling. American music teachers have standing appointments with
their students; both know what time each week the lesson will be
held. In the Japanese tradition, however, the teacher makes known
their available hours and students show up when they feel like it.
If you show up and there are other students waiting, then you wait
"in line". All listen to the student who is currently receiving a
lesson in the belief that they can all learn from it. It makes
perfect sense if you aren't worried about how much time you will
spend waiting.
The last discouragement with Neptune was that to get to his house for
lessons, I would have to travel through Shinjuku Station during rush
hour. Shinjuku Station is literally the world's busiest train
station.
Then I ran into William Malm, the author of the definitive book on
Japanese Music I mentioned above. He was giving a lecture at
"International Friends of Kabuki" a group to which I belonged.
Kabuki,
of course, is the Japanese theater form. It makes extensive
use of music, which may be one reason I really came to like it.
Anyway, Professor Malm was giving a lecture on the use of music in
Kabuki. After the lecture I ran into him at the train station. I
struck up a conversation, and told him of my idea to study Shakuhachi
and my conversation with John Neptune. He said I should not be
discouraged by Neptune's negative words. He said I could buy a cheap
wooden shakuhachi at a department store and try it on my own. He
said it didn't take that long to learn to make sounds. If I
succeeded then I could go take lessons.
It wasn't too long after that, by an amazing co-incidence, that I ran
into the street vendor I had met three years earlier that sells
plastic shakuhachis. I bought one from him for the equivalent of $6.
As Professor Malm had said it didn't take that long for me to start
making sounds.
Then my wife and I went to a concert by another American shakuhachi
player:
Christopher Blasdel.
I remember walking to a blinding snow to get to the conert hall and
having the snow melt off my head making my hair wet once we got into
the hall. Later I called Chris and he did indeed take students and
he scheduled lessons, in the American style. So I started taking
lessons from him. He got me to buy a
wooden shakuhachi as Professor Malm had suggested. That cost the
equivalent of $60.
After a while my teacher said it was time for me to get a real
shakuhachi, hand made from bamboo. He spoke to a shakuhachi maker
that he knew and arranged to have one made. That one cost me about
$600. I mention the prices of these three instruments because I've
always been struck by the fact that each one cost almost exactly 10
times the previous one.
I was thrilled to own my own shakuhachi. But unfortunately after a
few months the bamboo cracked and the instrument became unplayable.
One could argue that this failure of the bamboo was the maker's fault
for choosing a poor-quality piece. But one could argue as well that
it was just bad luck. My teacher arranged with the maker a deal:
the maker gave me a new shakuhachi, not so expensive or well made as
the first. In this way both the maker and I shared the cost of the
failure of the original instrument. It seemed a very Japanese way of
resolving the issue. It was also typically Japanese that my teacher
act as a go-between in the resolution. Indeed, since it was he who
recommended this shakuhachi maker to me, my teacher had an obligation
to help resolve any such disputes.
I continued to take lessons from Chris the entire time I was in
Japan. I once told him I was embarrased by the little time I could
find to practice, but he said even if I only played once a week at my
lesson it was better than nothing at all.
When I returned to the United States, I had the name of a Japanese
man to contact to continue my studies. He lived too far away but
recommended the name of a Japanese American who lived close by. I
thus continued to take lessons for several years. But then I broke
my shoulder and had to stop for several months. After that I chose
not to restart my lessons, as I was too busy.
I never considered that I was proficient at the instrument, at least
not enough to satisfy myself. The Japanese have a saying: "It takes
four years to learn to shake your head." It is a reference to the
fact that a shakuhachi player moves his head from side to side to
produce vibrato. I did learn how to make vibrato, but I never felt
like I had the dynamic range I wanted to be able to express myself.
When I was very young I had a record player that only played small 78
rpm records. Most of the records I had were "Golden Records" a brand
name for children's records, manufactured on yellow
plastic. One of these records was about Tarzan. The "A" side
"Tarzan's Song", the details of which I no longer remember.
The "B" side had "Tarzan's dance". I didn't realize it at the time
but "Tarzan's dance" was really
the
"Chinese Dance"
from the
Nutcracker.
When I was older my father bought a new phonograph that came with one
free LP recording--a kind of sampler of classical music. I used to
listen to that record over and over, and it certainly influenced what
later became my favorite classical music. One of the exerpts on that
record was
the
"Russian Dance"
from the Nutcracker.
A few years later I received a recording of the Nutcracker Suite as a
Christmas present. Now I could hear a broader ranger of music from
the ballet.
In sixth grade we students were given an opportunity to see the local
Glendale Symphony Orchestra. I remember that they played one piece
with which I was already familiar:
the
"Waltz of the Flowers"
from the Nutcracker.
can remember being so excited
about this event! It was my first time to see and hear in person a
symphony orchestra. The sound was so beautiful and so much better
than what I could hear in TV and records. I also remember being
surprised that the opening melody was carried by the cellos; I had
thought it was the violins.
As a young adult, before we had kids, my wife and I attended the San
Francisco Ballet performance of he Nutcracker. We liked it so much
it because a tradition for several years for us to attend.
It was many years later, and my older daughter, Elizabeth, had been
taking ballet lessons for several years. The school where she
studied ballet decided to put on a performance of Nutcracker. The
school was asking for parents to volunteer to be on the stage crew.
I think I was the only one to volunteer. I ended up running the
follow spot, but I was intrigued by the board that ran the rest of
the stage lighting. I asked the operator to teach me how to use the
board. He did, and the following year, I ran the light board. I
have been running the light board for
Western Ballet
ever since, even though neither of my children still study there.
(One is grown and the other lost interest.) During the years that my
daughters studied with Western Ballet, I watched them grow from rolls
for small children where they basically just wave their arms over
their heads and run around, to more sophisitcated roles, dancng en
pointe. In Elizabeth's case she danced the role of Clara, the
young girl who falls in love with the Nutcracker Prince.
The first American production of the Nutcracker ballet was done by
San Francisco Ballet
in 1944. In 1997 I had the thrill of
watching my daughter Elizabeth perform in San Francisco Ballet's
production of Nutcracker. It was a small part. Nevertheless I was
proud.
Japanese Music
Shakuhachi
Nutcracker
Piano Lessons
When I was three years old my mother had a friend who was a piano
teacher. We would go to visit her on occasion and I would sit at
the piano and "bang" on it--playing random notes and pretending I was
really playing. Then one day my mother's friend asked me if I would
like to really learn to play. I said "sure". So at the age of three
I began studying the piano. As a consequence I could read music
before I could read English.
Japanese Music
However, prior to getting our current piano, I spent some time in
Japan. The first time I went there was for a couple of weeks and I
just payed tourist. The second time was for three months, so I knew
I needed to make up a spare-time project to avoid getting bored. So
I decided to learn more about Japanese music. I went to concerts of
Japanese music, bought Japanese record albums, recorded Japanese
music from the radio. I also bought an English
book
by William Malm, probably the world's leading authority on Japanese
music outside of Japan. In all of these endevers I had the help of
Japanese people where I worked--mostly women. As in our own culture
it seems like women are more likely to be interested in music and
other art forms than men. When I returned from that trip I made a
tape recording, lasting several hours, organizing and summarizing
what I had collected. Since it was so long, I also made a shorter
version which I gave to friends here as well as to the Japanese
people who had helped me.
Shakuhachi
A couple of years later, I got the opportunity to live in Japan for a
year. (It turned into two years once I got there.) So I conceived a
more ambitious project: I would learn to play a Japanese instrument.
I chose the
shauhachi,
an end-blown bamboo flute.
Nutcracker
For some reason, the music from
Tchaikovsky's Nutracker
has played a
part in my life from an early age.