Piano Camp
a short story by
Shoshanah Lee Marohn
copyright 2016, Shoshanah Lee Marohn
The university where I got my teaching degree changes its
name every two or three years, and I can't remember what it calls itself at the
moment. Every time they change the name, their purpose is to make the school
sound more prestigious and noteworthy, but the actual result is that people
like me can't think of the new name when they are asked where they went to
college. I guess this has the opposite effect from that intended: if we ever do
think of the name of the place, it always takes at least five minutes to
remember it, and the person who asked clearly has the impression that only
dimwits go to this particular university.
At any rate, when I was
twenty-seven, I went back to school to get my teaching degree, and due to my
impoverished state of being, I was given a Pell Grant. Pell Grants are the most
wonderful things ever. People give you money, and you don't have to pay it
back. I'm sure something has been done to stop them by now.
In the summer of 1999, I went
to my nameless university's financial aide office to set things up for summer
school, and found that I was one credit short of a Pell Grant for the summer.
"You mean I don't get my
grant unless I take another summer school credit?"
"Yes," said the
kind young man behind the desk. (Everyone was pretty nice there.)
"So if I take one
credit, you'll give me five thousand dollars?"
"Yes," he repeated,
most amiably, pulling a summer school course list out of his drawer. "If I
were you, I would just sign up for a credit, any credit at all."
A perusal through the course
listings showed that there weren't all that many one credit courses. I could
take more than one credit, but unnecessary work was not on my summer itinerary.
I started looking through the art classes for something easy. No luck. Then the
music classes- I had always felt myself to be musical, although I'd never
mastered any particular instrument. "Piano Camp" was listed, one
credit, and it only lasted a week. I had a little electronic keyboard at home
and I had been working my way through The
Complete Piano Player for the last year or so. Beautiful! Perfect! I would
learn to play piano better, and also get my grant in the least painful way
possible. The summer was looking good.
Two months later, the first
day of piano camp dawned, and the weather was as sunny and bright as my
disposition. Since I'd never been to the music building before, I went early to
find my classroom. Along the way, I became caught up in a crowd of children
with their parents. Huh. Wonder what they were all doing? Field trip? Church
group?
Interestingly, all of the
children seemed to be headed towards the general direction of my classroom. Why
do they always schedule people so close together? I wondered. Here we had a
whole empty campus, and they had to schedule some sort of children's program
right in the same building as my piano class.
I went to the correct room
number and found oodles of people, most of them children, standing in various
lines. Not knowing what else to do, I stood in one of the lines, planning on
asking the person at the front where my piano class was and why it was listed
as this room number? But, as I drew nearer to the front of my queue, the
horrible truth because apparent. Little people were leaving the front of the
line with tee shirts that said, "Piano Camp, 1999" on them. When I
finally got to the front of the line, I was speechless. I was greeted by a
smiling man with a very bible-school-youth-group-leader air about him.
"Piano or violin?"
he asked me with an uninterrupted grin.
"Um- piano."
"Rooming here or
off-campus?"
"Sorry?"
"Are you staying in the
dorms?"
"No, no- I-" I
owned a house with my husband on the West Side.
"Good. Name?"
"Listen, I thought this
was a college class. It's in the summer school course listing."
"Oh, so you're one of
our music majors?"
"No, no. I just wanted
to learn the piano better." I felt like this was a really lame excuse for
being there- oddly, because it was the purpose, wasn't it?
"Oh, you can do
that."
"Well, what do the music
majors do here? They're learning, right?"
"No, actually, they help
our teachers." Fuck.
"Am I the only adult
student, then?"
"Oh, no," he was
still smiling. "I'm sure there is someone else. Tee shirt size?"
After having been given my
tee shirt, I was then herded into an audition waiting room. Apparently, we were
all to be put into different groups according to our ability levels. Looking
and the six- and eight-year-olds around me, clutching piano music books, I had
a sudden urge to run. But it was five thousand dollars. And I had to take a
credit to get my money. Piano camp, as it turned out, started towards the end
of the summer and therefore it was too late to begin something easier on the
ego, like, say, a four credit Calculus class, or Botany for Physicists. Those
classes were probably all full of six-year-olds already, anyway.
It was a brief wait until I
was sent into a small room with a grand piano and three skinny, intimidating
professors dressed in black. I took a seat at the piano bench. I gave them my name,
and they scribbled on clipboards. How was it that you had to audition for a
children's piano camp? Every moment, my day was becoming more and more surreal.
"I'm going to sing some
notes," said the only woman, "and I would like you to play them, exactly
as I sing them, on the piano." It seemed easy enough.
"Okay."
She hummed a little melody. I
played it as best as I could, starting on a high G note. The piano didn't play
like my electronic keyboard at home; my notes came out all funny, one note strong,
one weak, and I realized that my keyboard at home was not touch-sensitive. I
had never played a real piano before, and it was obvious to my judges.
The lady who had hummed the
melody looked at me disapprovingly, and I assumed it was the uneven volume of
my notes. But, no, I was actually inadequate in several areas.
"The melodies all begin
on Middle C," she told me, as though I should have known.
"Oh, okay," said I,
and I played her little melody again, this time starting on C. The woman stood
up and walked over to me.
"This is Middle C,"
she said, and played a C note two octaves down from where I had started. That
was a real confidence builder for me.
*******
Piano camp turned out to
consist of a week full of mornings in music theory classes, with afternoons
full of small group or private lessons, followed by practicing with your group
for the final performance Friday night.
So there would be a recital.
I decided immediately not to reveal the time and place of the recital to anyone
I knew- not even to my husband.
I was assigned to be in the
same group as four adolescent boys, ranging in age from twelve to fifteen. And
there was me, a twenty-seven-year-old woman who worked as a school bus driver
during the school year and was studying to be an English teacher. So it was
just your totally average musical group, nothing odd about it at all.
Most of the boys were at
about my same playing level, but there was one, the fifteen-year-old, who was
much better than all of us. Why he was in our group was a mystery to me at
first, until I figured out that he didn't play classical music. He played rock.
He could sing well, too- he's probably playing an Elton John tune in an
off-the-strip bar in Las Vegas right now. He was an excellent sight reader, and
the choice to not play classical was clearly a choice, and not a matter of
inability to do so. Also, this kid was a maverick in that he carried around a
harmonica.
For much of piano camp, the
fact that there was any other music besides classical music was completely
ignored. Interestingly, though, for two afternoons out of five, there was a
jazz pianist who was available to give lessons, a man with two Emmys under his
belt, who was inexplicably present for our benefit. My group, led by myself and
harmonica boy, were the only ones who took advantage of his lessons. This guy
wrote out chord progressions instead of notes; clearly he was in league with
the devil. Learning licks from him, I could feel my brain growing. With the
other teachers, my hands would progressively shake more and more until I wanted
to die. With the jazz guy, I wanted to sing. Unfortunately, it was only a few
hours, but I definitely learned a lot, particularly about the importance of a
strong left hand.
Another thing mostly ignored
at piano camp was the fact that it is possible to teach one's self music. I
guess it's that self-preservation thing. If piano teachers taught you that you
could teach yourself to play the piano, they would be putting themselves out of
business.
I think harmonica guy and I
were the only ones there who didn't have private lessons. The students all
played for each other a lot, and time and time again, you could ask someone
there why he or she had learned a particular piece of music (you could even ask
the student teachers, the adults) and the pianist would say, "My teacher
made me learn it." I couldn't wrap myself around that for anything. For
me, music had always been about fun- sometimes even about excessive drinking.
Here, it was reduced to drills, simply following notes on a page correctly.
Correctly? But what about improvisation?
The second most embarrassing
moment of the week (the first would be during the concert, of course) was when
the teacher complimented me. When I was called upon to play, I played a song on
the piano for the class, decently, and I was relieved when it was over. But it
wasn't. Lots of questions came from my young classmates. They were curious
about my presence. How long had I been playing? Who had taught me? Why did I
suck so badly? (Okay, they didn't ask me that one...) Stupidly, I answered all
of their questions honestly, and it came out that I had no teacher, that I had
just been working out of this book for a year, and that I had no real piano.
And, obviously, I was an adult.
That did it. According to the
woman teaching the class, (the same one who taught me where Middle C was
located,) I was a hero. She stood behind me and gave a speech to say as much,
"I find this so
inspiring. Let Shoshanah be an example to us all. She has no teacher, she's
well beyond the age when we usually start playing an instrument, and she
doesn't even have a piano- not even a piano! and yet she's still here, today,
learning how to play."
Well... sort of. I blushed
conspicuously. How could I tell them that I just wanted my Pell Grant? That all
of this had been a horrible mistake? That playing the piano was sort of like
knitting or making homemade ice cream to me? A hobby. A pastime. But clearly,
music meant a whole lot more, although I wasn't ready to admit it right then. I
would never be so embarrassed over making a batch of ice cream or knitting a
scarf. The lady made me feel like a freak for even considering teaching myself anything.
Was I really such an anomaly?
The afternoons of practice
were very trying for anyone over fifteen and female. The boys and I would be
sent off to a practice room with some music which we were expected to, you
know, practice. (Practicing in a practice room. Imagine that.) The boys would
inevitably find some kind of trouble to get into instead of working. Part of
their horsing around included just playing whatever they wanted, which, I have
to admit, was fun. Music is a great equalizer. When we were actually playing
music together, it didn't matter who we all were, individually. We were just
musicians.
So it came about that we
liked jamming together. We were each good at a certain part (I played the bass
line). The great jazz musician we had seen for a few hours had given us some
good tips. Now that we knew each other, we didn't want to play a classical
piece for the concert. We wanted to jam together on stage and play a twelve bar
blues. Our best pianist, the fifteen-year-old, didn't even want to play the
piano for the recital. He wanted to play his mouth harp instead.
By Thursday afternoon, it was
apparent that we probably would not be able to play anything but the blues. We
hadn't practiced anything that was formally written down. We were just screwing
around and having fun. I, in my age and wisdom, had done nothing to encourage
the boys to practice classical piano. I convinced them, in fact, that if we
played the blues well enough, the powers that be would allow us to play the
blues for the concert. So, on Thursday, we wrote an arrangement, ran through it
a few times, and then two of the boys went to get the head maestro so we could
play it for him.
Ten minutes later, the six of
us (the four boys, the Maestro, and I) were stuffed into a tiny room with two
grand pianos, and with a, "One two three four!" we played our hearts
out for the Maestro. We were on fire. We were bumping into each other, playing
over each other's hands, having a good old time. We were exuberant at the end.
Sweating. Smiling. We'd done good.
"Well, what do you
think? Can we play it for the concert?"
The Maestro (we really had to
call him, "Maestro") wore all black and held a white handkerchief in
front of his mouth, like a barrier to keep himself separate from the evil blues
music. He was not smiling. He hesitated to answer.
"Surely you're not going
to count out loud like that during the concert?"
None of us was really used to
playing with other people, and in order to stay together, we had been sometimes
shouting out, "One two three four one two three four!" to stay
together. This had been a suggestion of the great jazz pianist's. The great
jazz pianist who was now gone. On to LA for a recording.
"Well, yeah. We were
going to count out loud."
"No, no. The audience
will hear you! You can't count out loud."
So, we were cleared to play
the blues, as long as we did not count out loud.
I was quite happy. I was
ready to go home for the day. The boys had other plans.
"Hey, we gotta do this
right! We should have costumes!" Oh, my.
"No, guys, we don't need
costumes," I said. But everyone else was in agreement.
"Yeah, yeah! We should
wear all black! We'll be like the Blues Brothers!"
"And sunglasses! Black
sunglasses!"
"No, no, boys, I don't
think we need sunglasses. That's okay."
"I know I know I know I
know I know! We'll have the sunglasses in our hands, and then we'll like line
up on the front of the stage, and then right before we play, like, we'll all
put on our sunglasses together, like all at the same time!"
"No, really, boys,
that's okay. Let's just wear black."
"Oh, that is so awesome!
We have to do that!"
"That's bad!" (Bad apparently
meant good in the teenaged vernacular.) "Everyone, let's bring our
sunglasses tomorrow so we can practice!"
I was now definitely,
definitively, indubitably not telling anyone about this performance on Friday.
Friday evening arrived on
schedule, in spite of me.
It just so happened that
piano camp coincided with a time period when I was briefly addicted to buying
completely inappropriate clothing on ebay. Therefore, I had a dress which
would, under the normal circumstances of my life, have been inappropriate for
anything which I might normally do. Of course, preforming a blues number with
four teenaged boys was not in my normal realm of activity, and the dress,
unlike more of its closet mates, might actually be worn.
This was no ordinary dress.
It was black, clingy, and low cut, but that wasn't all this dress was about.
The fabric actually sparkled. It had some sort of willowy starlight woven into
it. I was 150 pounds and wished I was 130, but the dress would have none of
this. The dress said these curves were on purpose, these curves were there for
a reason, and the dress knew exactly what these curves were there for, even if
I didn't. It was impossible to walk in this dress without a slight seductive
sway of the hips. The dress was a performer, and the dress could only be worn
for a performance, and the dress insisted on being worn. Who was I to argue?
I met some of the boys'
parents in the auditorium that night. They clearly had no idea what to make of
me. Child molester in a shimmering black dress? What?
The program had cryptically
labeled our act, "Dueling Pianos".
I sat with my band. "Do
you have your sunglasses?" They kept asking me.
"Well, yeah, but you
know, we don't have to do the sunglasses routine..."
"Yeah, we do."
Sweet Jesus.
We sat in the audience for
most of the show. Some of the acts were amazingly bad. Of course, the players
were six-year-olds.
By the time our act was up,
my palms were sweating. We walked up the stairs to the stage. (I heard a lady
say, "nice dress.") We stood in a line facing the audience, the boys
all in black and me conspicuously grown up and in an evening gown. Then, on
cue, we all put on black sunglasses at exactly the same time. There were
chuckles in the audience. We gave each other a quick and serious nod (I have no
idea where that came from) and took our places in front of the grand pianos.
We started playing horribly
out of time with one another. We had never played together without counting out
loud. Screw the Maestro! As the bass line, it was my duty to keep us all
together. I started yelling, "One two three four one to three..." and
the boys started counting with me, one by one. And then we were together, just
like that. A miracle. We were good. Playing over each other's hands and
sweating and smiling and having a good old time. And our best pianist stopped
playing, stood up, grabbed a mike, and pulled out his trusty harmonica and
started tearing it up. And for a few minutes there, to be completely honest, I
was having a damn good time.
The piano camp recital was
reviewed on the last page of the newspaper the next day. Of all of the
performers, we were the only ones mentioned by name. We had made an impression.
I don't remember the specifics, now, except for one detail: they spelled my
name so horribly wrong that no one could ever possibly know I was there.
Complete anonymity! I hadn't even told any friends about it. It was my secret
week of piano camp. Until now.
