Piano Lessons

Piano Lessons by Jeff Namian

I’m a firm believer that it pays to acknowledge your weaknesses and remain humble and self deprecating. What I actually think of myself you’ll never know. You’ll find no evidence. But as a kid in the burbs where tranquilized housewives bragged about their kids, my mother desperately wanted to get me in the game, but she needed some material to work with.

I couldn’t hit a baseball. Couldn’t shoot hoops. Tennis anyone? Zero hand/eye coordination. So Janet decided to outdo the others by forcing me to take piano lessons. She chatted with her friends by the pool armed with a goblet of Chardonnay.

Tranquilized Housewife #1:  Isn’t that a little effeminate?

Tranquilized Mother (mine): Liberace plays the piano and he’s a man. That’s nonsense.

Tranquilized Housewife #2:  Well has he expressed any interest at all in playing the piano?

Tranquilized Housewife #3:  Janet, you don’t even own a piano. Do you?

Tranquilized Mother (mine): Why do you always focus on the negatives?

So I took piano lessons. I practiced chromatic scales and arpeggios. Then monochromatic scales. Made we wonder just how scales loomed in the distance. I practiced every day. I caught on to many of the disapproval signs like my mother firing up the vacuum cleaner each time I started. Neighbors closing their windows. Canines losing their shit. In some cases on our lawn.

My teacher was Mr. Morrison. He was probably in his sixties and had a decent career going until his arthritis got out of control. So I think he turned to the bottle. He wreaked of booze pouring out of his pores and had stanky breath. Now piano is a pretty up close and personal endeavor. The shaping of the hands. Striking the keys correctly. Lots of touching. I was inhaling not just his booziness but he also smoked. That one hour a week was torture. Most of the time, my brother had to go to his car, and knock on his window to wake him up. I’d be at the window thinking just let him sleep it off. 

After the lesson, he’d give my parents an update. They'd mix drinks, sit down at the kitchen table and discuss a game plan. I’d eavesdrop from the staircase.

Regarding my brother:

"Well he's just a natural. He's progressing at an alarmingly fast pace. He won't need too many tips from me in a few weeks."

“But now Jeffrey. Oh boy. Jeffrey Jeffrey Jeffrey. Where do we start? It’s going to take some time and much more effort on his part. I just feel he's not taking this seriously enough. Let's double his rehearsal time and up the lessons to two per week.”

I wanted to change my name and move. 

Even I couldn’t listen to myself. I eventually pressed the right keys, yet it took a while to set my hands the next one few. Like most professionals, my paws didn’t exactly glide across the keys. My approach was more hunt and peck. Everything I played had the hiccups. Having a musical ear isn't a given just because you shell out thousands for a piano and hundreds for lessons. My mother (in yet another delusional move) even had a custom made tufted pad ordered for the piano bench, complete with tassels. The thing was so overstuffed that I hovered a good two feet over the keyboard. From that height my fingers had the impact of an Iranian Missile Drone. For a few weeks practically everything I played had the force of the 1812 Overture. Bombs bursting. Stuff exploding.

Probably the most discouraging part of all this was that my older brother also took lessons yet never had to practice. He had perfect pitch, could sight read and had a sharp musical ear. Everything he played bordered on a mini-masterpiece. Worse, he was usually higher than a kite while playing. No practice. No interest. No parental pressure. High on who knew what, but it didn't matter because he was good.

Close to Christmas, my mother insisted I learn Claire de Lune. Every kid learns it at some point, usually after Fur Elise. To this day I can’t stomach hearing either of them plus Moon River, three members of the piano starter kit.

It’s Christmas Day and my mother announces that I’m about to entertain the guests. I proceeded to the bench. They clapped. Ten seconds later many of the guests were heading back to the bar to freshen up their cocktails. Some just jiggled their ice cubes to drown me out. 

My grandfather demanded to know how much money my mother sacked into this dead end career move. He escaped the genocides of Armenia and practically swam the whole way to Ellis Island. Ten minutes after getting his tetanus shot, he was drafted into World War One. A dough boy. So he got on another boat heading back to where he had just left. Well close to that. Armenia was pretty much an ashtray by then. The heavy stuff was coming down in Germany. After he satisfied his doughboy time, he came back to the United States just in time for the Great Depression. This dude either had the worst luck or was a heterosexual drama queen.

But back to the recital. Grandpa valued money. It didn't come easy and based on what he just heard he could call out when somebody was pouring money down the drain. And when he heard what the piano cost, he grabbed his coat, hat and wife and split. So if you're measuring responses, his was concise, loud and finite.

The other guests were slightly more tolerant. They had to be. They lived on the block so most of them weren't new to the strains of my piano pains. Lots of “gee it’s getting late” proclamations, though the sun hadn’t even set. Most of the menfolk headed to the basement to watch the football game. 

By the end of it there were three people left, including myself and my mother. Her face was buried in her hands. Her best friend Mary Jane was trying to console her. She knew it wasn't a good idea but hey what are friends for if they can't avoid the truth in favor of something that will make you feel better about your heinous act.

“All I wanted was to give him a chance.”

“You did great Janet.”

All I wanted was to take an axe to that frigg’n Wurlitzer