The Buskers Blog

Me and Pianos

I've mentioned before how pianos, being kind of big and heavy and hard to move from place to place–if I'd foreseen I would become a pianist and how often I'd have to play a P.S.O. (Piano-Shaped Object), or the miles I'd schlep also-if-not-quite-as heavy keyboards and amps, I might have at least been able to make a balanced, informed decision. But maybe the decision was made for me; partly due, ironically, to that same fact: because they are so ungainly, a lot of pianos get left behind when their owners move. 

 

My parents weren’t musicians. They had only a couple dozen records in the house and no instruments until the year I turned seven, when my father won a two-year diplomatic posting and we moved to London. The posh row house the US Embassy put us in boasted a baby grand in the parlor. (Thank you, American taxpayers!) My investigative noodling then led to piano lessons (thank you, Mom and Dad!) with wonderful Dennis Knight, musician at the Royal Opera House, who lived around the corner. And the rest is history (I say, pompously). 

 

 Dennis Knight, my first piano teacher (Royal Opera House)

 

Dennis got me started with the John Thompson series, "Teaching Little Fingers to Play," starting with that three-finger opus that goes: up (CDE); down (EDC); then finishing with the tricky, melodic, multi-directional phrase: (DEC). But the piéce de resistance was the follow-up, with the same  pattern, only moved to A as the starting note, which then miraculously becomes minor–the theoretical mysteries of which were major!

 

 

 No one teaches from this book any more.  

 

I cried before my lesson every week–but only because I practiced so little. I hated the thought that I might disappoint him. When we returned to the States, changed forever, I still took lessons, from one or two indifferent teachers, one of whom, when disappointed (or maybe just depressed from unrelated causes?), would get up, walk over to the window of her studio, and sigh while I struggled resentfully. But I can’t remember there being a piano in our house! A sign of how little I practiced? Where was it? What did it look like? I asked my older brother if he remembers, and he doesn’t, either. It really is a mystery to me now. Anyway, when I was 11 or 12, I quit.

 

Which was around when we moved to Washington, DC. At one For Sale By Owner showing, a beautiful old baby grand Behning twinkled in the corner of the homeowner's parlor. The elderly woman turned out to be the widow of a composer, and when she saw my eyes light up, she invited me to play. Reluctantly I sat down, and it was instant mad crush: a beautiful, expressive instrument. I continued to play, soaking up its tone, while my parents toured the house, which was in the end the house they bought. Moved by seeing her late husband’s piano appreciated again, she included it in the sale at no charge. For me. And I started lessons again, with the wonderfully nuanced teacher Gerda Klay, a Hungarian who had been family friends with Bela Bartok. She was so supportive; she made me feel that I had something; and I studied with her until I was 15. And there ended my formal classical training, I'm afraid.

 

 

3022 44th Pl., NW, DC. in 1978.  (drawing by me)

 

From then on–my last two years of high school in Vermont, a year in California, and college, I played more mandolin than piano, and pianos when and where I could find them. I got work accompanying dance classes during college (usually an improvisational mix of piano and percussion), and played the good Steinway in the dance studio after hours. After graduation, when  I moved to Brooklyn, there followed a long hiatus without; almost impossible to imagine now. I didn't even have a keyboard then. I was mostly playing guitar and bass–sensible, portable instruments (like my fellow Buskers play–the ones that are finished setting up and breaking down long before me). I don't even remember pining for a piano. 

 

But when my wife and I bought our home after moving to New Hampshire, I was in luck again: a solid old upright came with the house, a monument over-painted in Bandaid beige, which fortunately held its tune very well, as I couldn't afford regular tunings then. At some point we... sold it? I forget... and piano-sat a Wurlitzer console for a friend while she worked overseas; and KZ stored her huge–talk about monuments!–upright grand on our porch for a while when she moved to New York State; and so on. But while none of the several pianos that passed through the house qualified as P.S.O.s, neither were any of them worth writing home to mom about.

 

Easy to say when you have a Steinway in your studio! OK; some ten years ago, by which time my son Caleb was also getting serious about piano, a friend who was getting divorced offered to sell me her late mother’s 1940s Steinway S. Knowing it would be played and loved by Caleb and me, and that it would remain close by was some consolation for losing it. I bought it for $7000; took out a loan, which also covered new hammers and a little expert voicing work, and entered, with gratitude, a higher plane of pianohood. And of course I took it off my taxes. At 5’1” it may be the smallest of the Steinway grands, but it is still kind of and heavy and hard to move from place to place, so while we are overseas, it winters over, wrapped in quilts, in the house in New Hampshire. It needs some more work at some point, but I miss it. That action. I have a good setup with electronic keyboards here in Germany, and it’s more practical. of course, for apartment living–I can keep the volume down when practicing at night; but…

 

 

The Steinway S in my New Hampshire studio.

Suzuki Shines In My Heart

[Thank you to KZ for this timely personal reflection on the Suzuki Method and her meetings with Shinichi Suzuki himself.]

With all the hoopla going on in the music education world now about the differences between the Suzuki and O’Connor methods, I thought I would write about my experiences with the Suzuki method and my meeting with Shinichi Suzuki himself.

 Back in 1966 when the Suzuki Method was being introduced in the US, my parents enrolled my brother and me in one of the first programs available, which happened to be at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY, where we lived.  For the next several years we went once or twice a week for private and group lessons with a handful of other students.  We learned our Twinkle Twinkles and marched around the room clapping rhythms and sat in on each other’s lessons.  We memorized all of our music by ear and could sing and feel all the songs deeply inside of ourselves.  To this day I do that and lose many hours of sleep at night hearing and learning music in my head, heart and fingers.  I am thankful (and often sleepy) for this ability.

 One feature of the Suzuki method is to perform regularly, and to perform most or all of the songs you can play.  Thus, repetition and pre-viewing occur right away in a student’s education.  I performed constantly as a child, and our little group toured around New York State and to Ottawa, Canada for events.  Japanese students also toured to the US, so I was introduced to the Japanese very early in my life.

 One time in the late 1960’s Dr. Suzuki came to Rochester.  My parents offered to host a gathering at our house for him, and it was also his birthday.  So right then and there at age 7 or 8 I had met him; probably had a class with him that day though I don’t remember that, and loads of Japanese adults and children were in my home.  Ten years later when I was a college student studying abroad in Japan for a year, I learned of a Suzuki concert happening and somehow found a way to contact Dr. Suzuki.  In my low-level Japanese I composed a letter to him about having met him as a child and being interested in attending the concert and he responded with a couple of tickets to the concert.   The seats were right next to him and three rows behind then Prime Minister Ohira!  I was thrilled of course, and I soaked up the music and the sight of hundreds of Japanese children lined up in rows playing all the songs I knew so well. 

 In my little group of 8 students at the Eastman School, I know at least 3 of us have continued playing violin to this day, and we all play many styles and can improvise.  It took many years for me to learn to improvise and hear music chordally instead of just learning notes from a page, but I eventually could do it, and I certainly had the practiced power of memorization.

 I understand one of Mark O’Connor’s arguments against the Suzuki method that the repertoire could be considered passé and potentially replaced with new songs.  Sure, let’s add some “newer” tunes:  how about “Old Joe Clark” and “Soldier’s Joy”, both excellent fiddle tunes that could fit nicely into Book 1 or 2.  But those classic Suzuki musical selections teach the concepts beautifully, and certainly universally.

My memories of the Suzuki method are positive,  uniquely enhanced by meeting its maker.  I value the kind-hearted approach he used with children and I happily applaud the man that made my world larger.  Great memories!  

Little blonde KZ and her brother at a party their family hosted for Suzuki in the 1960's. 

 

My Musical Influences #2

For most of  those critical teenage years,  I lived in Washington, D.C. This was the ‘70’s, and my FM dial was always tuned to one station: the now legendary WHFS (Bethesda, Maryland; 102.3 FM). I didn’t know it then—probably assumed there would always be commercial radio stations that played Zappa, Bill Monroe and Bootsy in the same program;  but now I know WHFS was a rare beast. Even then it stood alone. And of course it’s long gone now. College radio doesn’t come close. These djs were pros, avatars.   That station opened up my ears for good.  Getting a little nostalgic, are we?

My Musical Influences #1

It’s embarrassing–I  can't stand most of his work: grandiose, predictable, simplistic, manipulative –but Andrew Lloyd Webber may be one of my biggest influences.  Let me explain. My family lived in England from 1966 to 1968. My brother and I were sent to English schools and when I was in first form (aka third grade) a Mr. Webber came and did a residency at our school. The musical he wrote and taught to us (I believe it was actually called an oratorio then—no acting, just songs) was Joseph and His Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. The music was fun—rock'n'roll—or so it seemed to me at age eight, and for the performances the school brought in a real rock band, The Mixed Bag—in matching Beatles haircuts, Beatle boots, and black leather jackets with lots of zippers. Mod! While we students were all in uniforms that would make Harry Potter and friends look like a Seattle grunge band. I got in trouble once for not having my school cap on when I arrived at the gate.  

There's no way to know, of course, but I think it's likely that seeing songwriting in action at a very young age: revisions, songs discarded, lyrics re-written, melodies changed, keys changed, harmony parts added, etc.. -had a lasting influence on me.  I know it seemed like a lot of fun, even then.

My brother still has a couple of the mimeographed lyric sheets.  I wonder if they're worth anything to Webber fans.

Band Name History

Driving back from a gig the other night we shared band name histories.  Paul had one called "Gone" which I think rocks.  He'll list the rest for us here once school is out and he has a little time again.  As for me, I can't remember my earliest--that would have been 7th grade--any more (hmmm...), but here is what I do remember, not that it's anything to brag about:

Flatrock Plains; Stony Lonesome (both from my country rock/NRPS/The Byrds/Flying Burrito Brothers and the Band phase);  Household Word (I liked it when people in the house shouted "Word!" "Word up!" when we went onstage; Storm Warning (I don't think they ever played an actual gig);  The Deadbeats (had to turn drunken drummer's mic off after the first set so no one could hear his rambling crude jokes) , The 5 O'Clock Shadows, Route 66, and I played for several years with the Rusty Rockstar Roadshow, whose leader modeled the band on the Blues Brothers, dark golassies and all

...what else?  Oh, how could I forget Bojun Hence!   Wait,  Was that an actual band or just a name we threw around?  Am I dreaming?

 

My First Recording Session (at 13) & Two One Night Bands

When I was 13  I got asked to do a recording for the Voice Of America, whose studios were in downtown Washington, D.C., my hometown at the time. They needed a boy’s voice for a broadcast.  I was into acting as a kid.  Summer stock in Washington gave me a chance to hang around with my older brother’s cool friends.  think my drama teacher recommended me.  Anyway, some paperwork was signed and I was taken to a sound booth, which in my memory had mint green pegboard walls, a big clock, and of course, a red-light “ON AIR” sign over the control room window: the Real Thing.

I felt prepared.  The material was within my range.  I had my game on.  My gig was to  yell, “Extra! Extra! Read all about!” a few times into a big microphone.  I think the director asked me to lay on the nasal All-American kid thicker (as in: “Extry! Extry!”)  but I’ve always been good with accents, so no problem. I was goood.

And that was it. I can’t remember whether I got paid or it was strictly volunteer, just one of those career-advancement and experience-building gigs (like what I still tell myself when the pay for The Buskers barely covers transportation, meals and lodging, which is all too often). 

The next time I recorded anything was ten years later in somebody's studio in Park Slope, Brooklyn; a demo for Household Word, a short-lived (i.e. one gig) band with fellow SLC alum David Grossman and my crazy Cajun roommate André Deshotels on alto sax. [I just went looking for my one cassette of that session, but can’t find it, and I lost touch with Grossman twenty years ago.]  Household Word’s one public performance was at the Gowanus Arts Exchange in Brooklyn.  I put the show together and put up the money.  We shared the bill with the artier band Mildred Pierce.  The plywood stage was bouncy and I chipped my tooth on a microphone on the first song, and at one point my bass amp fell over.  But the spice of that night was my other One Night Band (this one I knew would not survive): The Reggae/Polka Pick-Up Band, which also featured old friends Bob Goldberg and Henry Hample, of Washboard Jungle.  Our big hit of the night was The Reggae Polka, penned mostly by yours truly.  One verse consisted entirely of the line, “Coconut, calabash, ganja and kielbasa” sung four times, with increasing enthusiasm.   There might have been other verses.  Here’s the chorus:

    Do the Reggae, do the reggae, do the reggae polka
    Do the Reggae, do the reggae, do the reggae polka
    It’s always on the upbeat, it’s never on the down
    So do the reggae polka when you’re in this part of town. Hey!

The show brought in maybe 75 or 100 people, but in the end it cost me $150 and I had a stack of leftover beer and soda to dispose of at the end of the night.

In retrospect, I think it’s pretty clear I showed promise early on for a career in recording and performing music.