piano stories, key of A
as a friend of mine and i tried to avoid a sort of crazy but probably well meaning older asian lady on the bus, we shared music-playing stories (which the lady herself had brought up: [looking at me] “you play music don’t you? hah? hah? am i right? you must be on the stage. you gotta have charisma.”). he shared one that i want to re-share and store away, for whatever:
during his early years in grad school [he is an old fogey in grad school years], j started taking piano lessons. it was a serious investment — he bought a keyboard with weighted keys and signed on to weekly lessons. his teacher was a julliard-educated jewish woman in her late 70s, who lived in a high rise in first hill, one of those buildings that caters to retirees. [i imagine j walking down plushy carpeted halls with flowers on end tables at the end of the walk, passing by tracksuit-clad old folks with walkers.] he’d come every week and practice on her baby grand. j wasn’t very good, though; he never practiced, and so every lesson was painful for him because he never progressed.
once j’s teacher made him learn a duet with her, which they performed at an old folks home. according to j, the audience was quite appreciative, giving them a nice round of applause at the end. “i’m sure half of them were actually deaf,” j says. our mutual friends and [now former] classmates, v & j, showed up for the performance, like two supportive parents [in a sea of old folks, mind you]. after their performance, one of the audience members came up to v [who is japanese-american, and only half at that. j is chinese-american] and said, ‘you did a great job!’
oh old folks i love them.
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i wish my music-playing history was populated with stories like that. just these:
for five years i played recitals/competitions in which i always ended up in second place. worse, the first place student was always maritess b., as if the extra ’s’ conferred a bit of a piano-playing edge, more nimble fingers, or a better sense of rhythm. [no scars though; i eventually started a first-place streak that lasted a few years. take that, me with too many S’s!]
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after so many years of lessons as a kid, i only really learned to play the instrument when i took lessons again while in grad school. my teacher this time was a piano grad student from korea. for our first meeting i prepared a piece that was fast and loud, and i played it that way, wrists pounding at the keyboard, staccato where it shouldn’t have been. she looked on respectfully but also maybe a little horrified. during our next meeting, she had me touch the keys — really touch them, for varying amounts of time, with varying amounts of pressure, so that i could hear and feel the difference in sound. she trained my wrists to stay still, to put the movement in the arms and fingers.
from her i learned a deliberate touch of the keys as a more reasonable and elegant way to command the dynamics of the instrument. from her i developed an appreciation for reverberation under my fingertips, and a gradual disappearance of sound that corresponds to the rise of my arms from the keyboard.
[and if i ever write a screenplay for a cheesy movie about music, this will surely be a montage.]
interface explosion
the last two nights (or last week, even, if practices count) have overloaded my sociability circuits.
two fora, two audiences with different cultural narratives, rationalities, and operating assumptions.
1.
if PCN had been a big part of my college life and if the scale of that extravaganza had been 1/8 what it was, i imagine it would have been like the final show put on by my tagalog class: numerous planning sessions; power-infused leaders of the pack who are Seriously Serious (which i don’t mind — someone has to lead, and it won’t be me); hours spent at practice, half of which entail most of us sitting around; the catharsis of the performance itself. and cheesy jokes. many cheesy jokes about filipino-ness revolving around puns and mispronunciation (for which i admit i’m a sucker — here, some validation of my filipino-ness).
this is to say, i’m still OK with not having been in PCN. but i see how such things can cement a community of filipino folks on campus. the affair requires interactions structured by some hierarchy and delegation of labor, but it’s all organic enough so that one feels an attachment to the final product and the people who share it.
2.
last night multo/A and i played at jaime and neil’s (of world history) apartment-warming party. redbear, blanket truth, craig salt peters, and (eventually) world history also played. it was lovely hearing everyone’s music, and being heard by a small group of listeners in an intimate space. j and n’s place is cozy and well decorated, to boot.
since i’m relatively new to playing and taking in music this way, i was both charmed by and jittery about it all. music and musicians for me have been off in the distance; i go to shows and, whether the show is large or small, make myself inconspicuous and my ears and eyes all-enveloping. my mouth doesn’t usually get any exercise at these things. the imperative to interact is something to get used to, maybe. the setting seems like an ideal way to really listen to music, to listen and appreciate carefully, to let music-makers know they’re loved.
j and n were gracious hosts. i hope their apartment has been warmed accordingly.
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for now, back to being a recluse. it’s that time of the quarter — for grading, reading, writing, and otherwise shutting myself off from the outside, save for those trips to the coffee shop or gym, at which i can pretend to interact with people by virtue of being around so damn many of them.
scrabbel is looking to be my soundtrack for the end of the quarter. file them/him under Things I Wish I’d Done/Heard/Seen While I Was Living In The Bay Area. that’s far too long for a blog category.
recognized
multo’s made “demo of the week” over at indiepages.
it’s not technically my music, nor am i on the demos. but i’m happy for A and the prospect of music-making.
play mar, play
i’ve been a-practicing a few weeks now with A/multo in preparation for our live, public rendition (i don’t know why calling it a show weirds me out) on sunday.
i don’t have any experience playing music that’s new, for, with, in front of the person who wrote it. it’s exciting that A can revise his music at will, on the spot. i defer to him because that’s what i’m used to doing when playing music — the page says forte, i play forte; A says play legato and i play legato. it’s a nice respite from seminar, reading, overall school-related worries — this playing music, and not just the piano, with which i can lock myself in a practice room for a solitary experience.