Pam says this is nothing to feel bad about, that the 8th grade is really quite a bit more difficult and I’m just not ready for it yet. So I will be doing the 7th grade audition two years in a row. I did the 6th grade audition two years in a row as well. Many of the students take two years to get through a course. This is very probably for the best. The good news is the pieces will be easier and, since it’s my second time at bat, I’ll be allowed to play two jazz pieces this year, something I was not allowed to do last year. It also takes a lot of pressure off in a year where everything in my life outside piano is going to be quite intense. After all, this is probably the year that I buy my new house, sell this house, finish closing out the estate, and begin and quite possibly complete my quest to relaunch my MBA career. And depending on how well the script is received, possibly even relaunching my film career.
Now I have another year to get my technical skills more up to speed, and spend a lot more time studying theory, two areas I haven’t focused on nearly as much as I’d like. This is also a good opportunity to reflect on the journey thus far and take stock of where I’m at.
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After a 12 year absence (or 42 years depending on your point of view), I started lessons again in September 2007 at the age of 54, a middle-aged man embarking on a new adventure in life. There are many middle-aged adults who take up piano just out of desire to entertain themselves, but very few who take it up seriously, or even desire to. Pam probably has a dozen or so of us adults and it is usually just myself and one other who is studying seriously. I’ve written before that I’m using this blog to keep a journal of this experience as I hope to prove myself the exception to the rule and become one of those rare adults taking up piano in middle-age who actually stays the course and goes the distance to become an accomplished pianist.
If so, I have both a memoir and a documentary film that will be in the works about this unique odyssey I am pursuing. About two years ago, I began a rather involved research project to identify as many of the musical descendants of Beethoven who are alive and working in the world today. As I progress in both my research and in my own musical skills, I will seek them out and interview them, weaving their experiences into my own. The book and film will be titled, "Beethoven’s Progeny: Coming to Piano at Middle-Age" and will be about both my journey and the journey of piano itself. I already wrote a blog entry about it in 2010.
As for my story, I had first started lessons at age 7 and took until I was 12, but really didn’t have my heart in it so, in those five years, never progressed beyond 2nd grade. Then I didn’t look at another piano again for many years. When I came home in 1989, it was the first time since leaving home for college that I had access to a piano, the old family Wurlitzer spinet that I had trained on when I was seven. In 1990, I ran into my old buddy Tim Smith. He had just finished his master’s degree in piano at Oakland University in 1988, was now teaching and was very happy to take me on as a student. I studied with Tim off and on (mostly off) until 1995 when he decided to quit teaching and spend fulltime composing and performing. Those five years with Tim (probably closer to two years of actual lessons) were very enjoyable and I did progress this time into the 3rd grade but, when he quit, I lost my motivation. He sent me to another teacher but I didn’t like the guy and I was just then getting immersed in Loopholes, so piano went by the way-side. By 2007, 2-1/2 years after Dad’s death and 2-1/2 years being swamped with executor duties, I needed a creative outlet so asked Tim once again for a reference. This time he sent me to Pam. Under her tutelage, I blossomed and, at 54, finally made a serious commitment to the instrument.
My path in piano has been circuitous to be sure which is why I didn’t really settle down to a serious commitment until I came into Pam’s company. I do recall that starting piano at the age of 7 was entirely my idea. Unlike so many other children, I was not pressured into it. We had just recently acquired the Wurlitzer from Fr. Joe’s church in Detroit and it was I who went to Mom and Dad and expressed the interest in taking lessons. They were thrilled and sent me to some teacher in Keego whom I can only say that, from the point of view of a 7 year old, was an old lady who seemed to me to be about 90. (She was probably about as old as I am now.)
At first it was wonderful, but after a few months it lost its appeal. But I stuck with it a whole year before I decided I didn’t like it anymore and asked if I could quit. I’m quite certain one of the reasons I had lost interest was that this lady was probably a taskmaster who did not know how to make the musical experience fun. I’m sure, like many teachers of the era, she approached the lessons from the point of view that this isn’t going to be fun until you acquire certain technical skills and the only way to do that was through strict discipline. So I was not only losing interest but I was learning to dread it. I asked to quit. The answer was no.
Mom and Dad thought I had talent, and if I just stuck with it a while longer, I’d be thanking them later. It took five or six years of lessons to convince them that they were wasting their money. The only distinct memory I have of piano during those years was being scolded all the time. I was scolded daily for not practicing enough. I was scolded weekly at my lesson for not practicing enough. About a year before they finally acquiesced, Mom did come to me and ask if it’d make a difference if she got me a different teacher. If she had raised that possibility when I had first asked to quit years ago, I might have said yes, but there was now way too much water under the bridge and I just wanted out. I never really did understand why they chose that particular teacher. I asked Mom about it a couple years ago and she recalled that they had sent me to Rita Gust, a friend from Refuge. I’m quite sure that has to be wrong. I knew Rita quite well as an adult and I’m certain I would have remembered her as my teacher. It’s far more likely that Rita was the one who recommended my teacher. Anyway, it’s too bad. I really should have had a teacher who was much more in tune with children.
I do have a very clear memory of my final lesson. Mom came with me and the only purpose of the lesson was to inform my teacher that we had decided to stop the lessons. I remember Mom acting very disappointed and my teacher acting heartbroken. Why this reaction I still don’t understand since I obviously had not progressed very far in five years. Still, Mom had always told me she was making me continue the lessons because she believed I had real talent, but that was just Mom talking. Though she had no musical talent herself, it was obvious she had always wanted a musician in the family and, at that time, I was the only candidate. Ironically, within a few years, Tim and John would both take up guitar and become quite proficient, and Marijo even had a brief but fruitful fling with the violin.
Once again, that was our mother. She sometimes made us do things we didn’t want to do convinced it was in our best interest and that we would thank her later. So after five years of wasted lessons, she finally caved. At that final meeting, my teacher practically started crying. Mom had always expressed the sentiment that she believed I had talent but now, right in from of mother, my teacher expressed the same sentiment, that she believed I had the makings of a prodigy if only I would apply myself and now she was heartbroken because we would never know. Her sentiment was that if I could stick with it, I would be a great pianist someday. My sentiment (though I kept it to myself) was that, after five years of these miserable lessons, I now hated the piano and just wanted to get as far away from her and it as I could. If I had anything to say about it, I was never going to look at another piano again, let alone play one.
For the next 25 years, I kept my word. Ironically, though, it was just about the time I was attending BU, that I started getting the itch again. A few of my very good friends played and played beautifully (Annie was one, Ron another) and I began having regrets about my youthful decision. One day, Marguerite and I went to visit her friends Joan and Tom in their Boston suburb. Joan it turns out was a piano teacher, so I sounded her out. I shared with her the miserable experience piano had been in my childhood and told her that, to my surprise, I’ve been finding myself missing it lately and that I might want to take it up again. She just frowned and looked at me as if she had heard this story a thousand times before and said, "I doubt it."
That was all I needed to hear. She really wasn’t any different from the piano teacher of my youth. I didn’t need the looks of disapproval. How different teachers are today. I know of no teacher today who would not try to encourage some young adult to try to take it up again. Teachers today are no less strict. Both Tim and Pam are very exacting and demanding. But they are also both very supportive and encouraging and bend over backwards to make the experience rewarding. All the teachers I have met in the last five years have been like that. There is no shortage of good teachers out there. But all I needed from Joan was to hear those three poisonous words, "I doubt it." If she had been at all positive, I very likely would have started lessons again right then since I had access to pianos at BU. I’ll also say that if Tim had given me the same reaction when I ran into him in 1990, if he had said, "I doubt it," I very likely would have never started again at all. But when Joan told me, "I doubt it," that’s all I needed to stay away from piano for another 15 years.
So Tim got me started again after a 25 year absence and I had roughly 100 lessons and 400 hours of practice over a 6 year period. We had just started 4th grade when we quit. Then another 11 year absence. Tim and Pam have opposite approaches to teaching. Tim takes an intuitive approach, seeks to teach you how to "feel" the music. Pam takes a technical approach, even though it is heavily tempered with creative nuance, but nevertheless begins with the premise that proper technique is an absolute prerequisite to creativity. Both approaches have their value. One of the best teachers in the United States, Bob Milne, who offers lessons in ear training up in Lapeer, is very much like Tim. But the Piano Guild takes the technical approach. Technical mastery is the cornerstone of all creative expression. Nothing is more technically sophisticated than music and the piano is by far the most technically demanding of all instruments with the millions upon millions of sounds that are possible and almost infinite variations of subtlety with which those sounds can be created when in the hands of a superbly trained pianist.
So now four years and four months later, I have stayed with the piano longer and gone further with it than ever before, certainly much further than I ever dreamed I would. When I first started with Tim, my only real objective was to become competent enough to play at parties (a goal I’m still quite a ways from). But, under Tim’s direction, it didn’t take me long at all before I decided I want to be able to play as well as a professional, a goal he told me would be within my grasp after about 2,000 hours of practice. So I started with Pam with the goal of doing the 2,000. I’ve been logging my hours all along, though I stopped adding them up a couple years ago, but I’m sure I must now be approaching the 1,000 hour mark as I average about one hour a day.
But when I did start with Pam, my goals quickly changed again. I no longer plan to stop at 2,000 hours. With Pam, it didn’t take me long at all to once again fall in love with piano, and like anything you have a passion for, the more you study the more you realize how much you don’t know and the more you want to know all that you can know. The Piano Guild has 21 courses in its curriculum and I’m in the 7th. I think I decided about three months into the lessons that, this time, I was in it for the long haul. This has become a life commitment. It may take 30 years or longer to complete all 21 courses, especially if it keeps taking me an average of two years on each course. It is a tough curriculum.
First there are twelve courses just to get to the high school level. Then there is the four year high school course, followed by a four year collegiate course. The high school diploma course is so stringent that most students can easily be admitted to any top conservatory having completed just the sophomore year. Most piano students complete the Guild’s college diploma course AFTER they’ve already earned their bachelor’s at a music school.
Most schools offer three bachelor’s programs, and many students complete all three. There is the Bachelor’s in Music, which is offered to students who don’t yet qualify for the Performance major, which is quite a lot more competitive than a general music major and, unlike a general major, usually requires ten to twelve prior years of lessons for acceptance; then the B.A. in Performance, and the third in Pedagogy. There is a young lady at Oakland University right now who has two bachelor’s degrees and a master’s and is now working on the Guild’s Master’s Diploma, which is the 21st course. The Guild takes you as far as the Master’s Diploma, and then you can go to a conservatory for a Ph.D. In music, I’ve discovered, there are three different doctorate degrees and many music faculty have all three. There is the Ph.D in Performance, another in Pedagogy or Music Education, and the mother of all diplomas, the D.M.A. The Doctor of Musical Arts degree is the ultimate academic accomplishment for any musician and the Ph.D. is a prerequisite for it.
The Ph.D. of course is strictly for those who wish to make careers out of teaching and performing. It is generally also a prerequisite for a concert career. There is a young 29 year old prodigy on the faculty of Oakland University who earned her first Ph.D. at the age of 16 from Shanghai Conservatory, making her the youngest Ph.D. in the history of China. She received her second Ph.D. at 18 from the Brussels Conservatory and then spent the next seven years on practically a daily concert circuit throughout Europe and Asia. Then she came to the U.S. and, at the age of 26, got her D.M.A. from the prestigious Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, one of the premiere music schools in the world. She went from Rochester, New York, to Rochester, Michigan and the faculty of Oakland University where, after only one year, she is now the head of the piano program. I have attended every one of Yin Zheng’s concerts.
But that is for the professionals. The world of the professional pianist is a tough one, on the road constantly, living out of hotels for years on end, giving several concerts per week, usually in a different city (and sometimes even a different country) each night. These careers are only for the young, which is why most music colleges won’t even accept your application if you’re over 30. I know U of M won’t. Oakland is one of the exceptions. So is Michigan State.
That is why I love the Guild. Whatever your goal, whether you’re an aspiring concert pianist or just a hobbyist like myself, they are there to help you achieve it. And support you through the entire process, however far you wish to go. They leave no pianist behind. I don’t know if I’m going to live long enough to do all 21 courses, but I’m going to go as far as I can in how ever many years I have left.
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