Sciences and the arts are two factors to life that some people believe elevates humans beyond other creatures of the planet. And yet, if it was such a basic attribute to our species (and yet at once an advance and complex attribute to the universe,) why is it so difficult to comprehend and apply science to real life, or create the arts? Is it even beyond some humans and in the grasps of, even more, advance humans of the advance race? We have sciences and arts all around us, day after day, as a factor we cannot escape: it’s so easy to wreak its benefits and enjoy its presences, yet it is so hard to understand why one would create art or how one comprehends science.
Granted, I’m not saying I’m better, per se, then other people. No, but I do enjoy the playing with science, trigonometry and biology and chemistry, it’s actually quite exhilarating to me to tell the truth even when some things don’t connect quite as quickly as I would like. I enjoy music also, which is a given as most people (I could easily bet all people) enjoy music, whether selective or general in their likes. I can go a step farther, however: I can play music, and even yet, I create music.
Some people go even farther, and claim that music is their life. I cannot make such a claim, because I’m not completely obsessed with all things music. But I love it, deeply, and I love to play the piano quite more then I love to hear one play for me. I can’t say that, however, with writing music though, but that is still quite enjoyable. But I didn’t always enjoy playing the piano, as it felt like a chore I chose to do, but dreaded all at once. The raspy clanging of the key’s mechanism an instant before felt pads strike metal chords is food for my love, and I do eat on. I would hit the keys, playing not so random notes in harmonies and chords to create what I could best call ambient music. That was the true food of my love, music that came directly from my seven year old heart as I would blindly press here and there to create what my body and mind told me to create. I dreaded scales, though, scales and the intensive droning that one gets when they play Bartok fifty-three times in one sitting just in order to master the final six measures and the grace notes that aren’t so graceful. Scales are not of the heart: they are no better then machines compared to animalistic emotions. Bartok is amazing, I realized, after first hearing the piece played out as an example by my teacher when she first assigned it to me. That, I commented to my heart, that has soul.
But such a comment is not as deep as one would think. Yes, it has soul, but one would have to be daftly deaf in order not to notice the difference between an A-flat major scale and Chopin’s Polonaise in A-flat major. Daftly deaf, and mad.
My mother quickly caught on that I would neglect my ivory keys, as when she would ask me to play a piece for her enjoyment, her face contorted with pains. My music wasn’t quite as beautiful as she had expected. My instructor also felt the need to inform my mother that, get this, reason to believe I wasn’t practicing at least five hours a week. And with that, my mother swooped over my shoulder as if a hawk looking for prey (mistakes.) She also felt that five hours wasn’t nearly enough, and I was to do at least an hour each day. A day! That’s seven hours a week, plus another hour with my instructor. Eight hours! But she swooped about, without a care of my opinions on how much I should practice, and when.
-But my arms hurt!
-Then play some more, and build up your muscles. Your arms won’t hurt then.
-But Mrs. Keller says that if your arms hurt, playing more might make it worse. It’s not like sports where you can keep going and g-
-Just, just be quite and play! I don’t care, I’m paying good money on your lessons and this piano so you can play, so play on!
-But…
-Play!
She never ceased her flight patterns, picking me up from school, talking mindlessly about her day for the fifteen minutes it took to get home, make me a quick snack and then sitting me down, sometimes forcibly, in front of the piano and listening to me play for an hour a day (except on Thursdays when she brought me home, made me a snack and then quickly fling me across town to my lessons for an hour, and then yank me back just to practice for another hour.) She would also comment my playing, also mindlessly, without heed to what was written on the papers in front of me, things that haven’t changed (except with variations in difficulty) in sometimes over a hundred years.
-No, it says right there to play it like it.
-But it sounds ugly, she retorted back, play it smoothly, like silk.
-But it’s supposed to be detached like that, it’s staccato!
-It’s ugly, play it smoothly!
I reluctantly played the staccato middle section smoothly, took out the horrible grace notes, and played more loudly in the piano opening, because you want people to stay awake, not fall asleep (what she didn’t realize was that I was playing a nocturne.)
The more I practiced that way, the more it was embedded in my head. I tried to tell myself that I would have to learn it otherwise, the correct way, in my head, because I had no time without my mom banging my head against a table when I practiced. So I told myself, just remember that there are grace notes, the intro is piano, and the middle section is staccato.
Ann my recital came up a few days later, a little impromptu get together with all the students and teachers of the district in the Oregon Music Teachers Association. I was horrified, because I didn’t know if I could remember all the little details that were to stay, in my head, when I was up on the stage in front of hundreds of people. And horrifically, it was announced:
-This is also an impromptu competition. No sheet music will be allowed during the show, thank you, and please enjoy these little talents.
I stood in shock, my legs shaking and my sight going in and out of focus. My fear was obvious as my mom told me:
-Don’t worry, it’s going to be a breeze, you practiced all week.
So when my name was called, quite early in the day as “e” was the beginning to my last name, I blindly walked up to the stage and sat down at the amazing grand Steinway Piano that the Performing Arts Center could afford with the hippie community and their constant findings of the arts, and the center. It was pure ecstasy for me, being in the presence of god. And I pushed his buttons, and a dolce middle C rang throughout the auditorium. I gasped for air, when I looked to where it had gone, and to my left side sat eight full rows of family and friends and other talents. They were looking on enjoyably, waiting for me to play, but I didn’t want to, because I knew right then, I was to mess up.
I began loudly, and I forgot the grace notes and it wasn’t staccato in the middle. I didn’t win any prize, the people in the audience who knew the piece looked confused, and my teacher asked if I was really nervous. I was, but that’s not close to why I didn’t play correctly.
And a told you, at the end, would have been appreciated. I told myself to say so, to tell her I told you so. But I would rather not end my story with a slap.
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