Back to the Future

My Certificate of Merit evaluation marks from 10th grade!

Now that I had my dream piano there was no doubt I had to practice.  It started out as the thought, "Okay, I'd better be worthy of my Steinway M!  Better start working!"  Once I began, however, it was evident that I wasn't going to stop at just "getting my chops back".  I wanted to draw all kinds of melodies out of this amazing instrument, all the pieces I'd played before and more.  Much more.  I wanted to be able to play well pieces I'd never even touched before (and are beyond my abilities currently, unless you count what I call "train wrecks") notably Ravel's Alborada del Gracioso.

I started with scales and arpeggios.  Around the circle of fifths I'd go, and at first I was absolutely appalled by the fact that I'd managed to forget how to play the flat keys.  Muscle memory supported me most of the way, until I fell apart, of course.  I turned to Hanon to work some dexterity and strength back into my fingers.  I'd never been proud of my technical ability on the piano - my strength was passion, not clean technique - and now it was humbling to know just how far I'd fallen behind.  But hey, I had to start somewhere!  I was so happy just to be playing, and those scales were rendered heavenly to my ears by my wonderful piano.

When I visited my parents a couple of months ago, I dug through a pile of sheet music from years past and found my Certificate of Merit evaluation grades and comments.  I'd completed the advanced levels of this music study program and even earned a Senior Medal granted by the Panel before I went off to university.  Thinking back, I don't really remember much about how I managed to study the music theory required to pass these exams, much less prepare the 4-5 pieces for the evaluation each time.  I read the comments, fascinated by how insightful they were.

For my rendition of Gershwin's Prelude No. 2, that deliciously slow, lazy one, one panelist pointed out that I was (incorrectly) accenting the second beat in walking bass line and I immediately recalled how I'd struggled with that.  Pow!  I was taken back to high school and my afternoons practicing this piece.  It felt amazing, humbling, exciting.  It was like a window into my past and yet still present, yet somehow secret, self.

But then I saw all my good marks and letters of invitation to play in various festivals and recitals: Schumann, Schubert, Bach, Panel Advanced Students, etc. and thought, "Well, I must not have been too bad a player" - it felt nice.  And it made me hopeful.

And there was the music theory.  If I wanted to have a solid background in the study of music, I needed to know at least as much as I'd learned before, and much more for any postgraduate study.  I would wake up super early, needing to figure out a plan, and I'd research for hours online while the sky was barely light.  I finally decided on taking a couple of online courses from Foothill College, one in music history and one in music theory.

Online classes are a godsend to folks like me, who are juggling a full time job along with everything else in life.  I embarked on this path after requesting to meet with the chair of the music department, Dr. Hartwell, who welcomed me warmly and was very supportive of my goals.  He asked me if I was planning to take piano lessons again, and recommended a certain Thomas LaRatta.  If I was interested, I was to tell him so that he could make an introduction for me.  One doesn't just call Mr. LaRatta!  I took note, but thought, "He sounds like a master teacher; he probably wouldn't accept me as a student!"

I got in touch with the one piano teacher I'd studied with as I grew up and visited her one afternoon with my sister, who was also her student.  Sheila Raleigh's little house at the end of the quaint country lane looked exactly the same as I'd remembered - even the lamp was in the same place.  I wasn't sure that I wasn't 13 again, approaching her house and anxious because I felt ill prepared for my lesson.  But no, this was years later, and we had a lovely time reminiscing and catching up.  I'd told her I wanted to study again, but she'd already retired and had prepared for me a small list of teachers who might accept adult students.

When I mentioned Mr. LaRatta, her eyes widened.  "Good heavens, is he still teaching?" she asked with incredulity (apparently he is getting on in years).  But she went on, eyes still wide to exclaim that if he was willing to teach me then "by all means, yes! ... Call him first!"  Okay, I told myself, I have to give it a shot now!

I asked Dr. Hartwell for an introduction to Mr. LaRatta, and before I knew it, I had an audition on Christmas Eve.  I started to practice my scales with a quality that carried a tinge of desperation (time was running out!) and chose 4 pieces to present: Bach, Schumann, Brahms, Ravel.  I knew I was missing a Classical period composer, but I didn't have time to prepare something else.  I needed to show what I could do, now, and could only work hard and hope for the best (and expect the worst).  This was the beginning of my new beginning, and I was excited, scared, elated.  I was really going to do this, and that's what counted. 

Dreams Do Come True!

My lifelong dream of having the perfect grand piano in my home has been fulfilled!  After having traveled extensively for work the last few years, I couldn't help but begin planning my life anew while I was still in Beijing last summer.  Now that I would no longer be living out of a suitcase, I knew the piano would be part of my grand plan.  I had no idea just how committed I would become, but boy was I excited about the prospect of piano shopping!

In the beginning, the goal was to replace the old workhorse, a Hamilton full upright from 1920 bought off of a Craigslist ad. (Incidentally, it cost more to move than to purchase.)  I'd be sad to see it go since it'd been part of my home, but I certainly wouldn't miss the dead lower register - the result of completely worn felts - and the fact that the piano had to be tuned two tones lower than A440 lest the strings snap out entirely.  But, after I started trying out pianos, it was clear that I'd be making an upgrade of a lifetime.

The search took about two months, with multiple visits to four (or was it more?) dealerships.  The search began at Colton Piano, which was much smaller than I'd remembered it as a little kid when it was still a superstore, and a Chinese salesman railed at my poor sister that her hands were mushy at the keyboard, "... like tofu!  Tofu!!!"  After the economic downturn, the owner decided to focus on dealing in Schimmel pianos.  They were black, shiny concert grands, lovely to look at, but the sound was too 'glassy' for me, like the vast majority of the pianos I tried during my search.  Let me explain a little what I mean by that.

I am a Romantic and Impressionist era junkie, and particularly enjoy playing Brahms, Chopin, and Ravel.  I prefer a very 'lyrical' center.  In general, I love a piano that doesn't show its character right away - you have to coax it into working with you until it sings just the way you want it to, rather than it 'running away' beneath your hands.

Searching for your very own piano is a highly personal and subjective process.  It's not just an investment: it's a window into your hopes and dreams.  The goal was to find an addition to my household and my family.  This was not going to be a 'Sunday driver', as Bosko, the attentive salesman at Carnes Piano, called expensive grands bought by respectable families to garnish their living rooms, only to languish away and never be played.  This, it seems, is a fate worse than death for a piano: to be relegated to the category of 'very expensive furniture'.

I was briefly infatuated with a 1985 C. Bechstein, a sturdy salon grand with a sound and touch that much more wonderful than anything I'd tried up to that point.  It became clear that I wasn't merely going to replace the 1920 Hamilton; I was going for my dream.  I couldn't sleep the night I realized this, thinking, "Good heavens!  How are the finances going to work out?  What is a feasible budget?"  I knew already that there was no going back, though, and secretly, I was glad.  Really glad.

One day we went up to San Francisco to visit the Museum of Modern Art.  But hey!  Wasn't there a Sherman Clay store right by the museum?  Maybe we could just pop in and check it out ...

We never made it to the MOMA that day (still haven't, actually).  As we walked in and took in the vaulted ceilings and lush interior of the showroom, I thought, "Oh, crap.  I'm totally out of my league."  I imagined every piano in there had to be far beyond my (recently raised) piano budget.  The lady sitting at the front paid us no heed.  Finally, the store manager, Vince, greeted us and I told him what I was looking for.  He was friendly but non-committal, and invited us to look around.  I was too scared to play any of the lovely Steinways gracing the room, for fear of falling in love with one of them and not being able to afford it.

Finally, I couldn't resist.  I played Valse Noble from Schumann's Carnival, and Vince came back to show us past a set of glass French doors - apparently he thought me a worthy candidate to talk to!  Inside this room were more Steinways grands, the crowning glory being a Model D on a raised platform.  Vince explained that the concert pianists who come into town to play recitals or with the San Francisco Symphony all choose their pianos here.  "Oh crap," I thought to myself at that point, "I'm *really* out of my league."

I couldn't help but ask about some of the artists who had passed through.  "Lang Lang?" Vince said, "yeah, he's smooth.  Really smooth," and when asked about Yundi Li, Vince chuckled that he was "kind of a nervous wreck."  Ha!

But before he could get too far I rather apologetically told him my budget range.  To my utter surprise, he responded that yes, there were grands in that range, and they were also having a sale.  "Oh, really?" I replied, raising my eyebrows.  Inside, I was jumping up and down, waving my arms wildly.

A few hours later, two pianos were on my mind: a 1934 Model L (5'10"), and a 1976 Model M (5'7").  The former had a bigger sound, but the latter was just so ... precious, in every way.  It was the piano at the front of the showroom, the one I'd first played the Schumann on that afternoon.

I could hardly think the rest of the evening.  I had the feeling that this was it, but that I would sleep on it.  As it turned out, I woke up in the middle of the night, thinking, "Oh my god, the piano!" and I knew.

The following Tuesday, the deal was sealed.  Vince stayed late at the store to accommodate our work schedules and traffic.  He seemed genuinely pleased that the piano was going to a family that would cherish it and play it often.  He threw in the DVD "Note By Note" about the making of a Steinway concert grand, a coffee table book on Steinway and its history, and even offered to trade in the Hamilton for more than we'd originally paid for it!  I was in seventh heaven.

It's been a few months after Steinway joined our family, and I still marvel at the sheer delight of sound and touch of this most amazing instrument.  This isn't just about Steinway worship, mind you; I've met Steinways I didn't like at all.  But this one is perfect, for me.  Even playing scales has me in raptures, and when I see "Steinway & Sons" above my hands as I play, I can't believe that I'm living my dream.  

On a Journey, At Once Familiar Yet New

It hit me like a ton of bricks one day, but in a good way: I knew, with a conviction I hadn't experienced in a very long time or perhaps at all, that I needed to play the piano again.  Not just to work back up to where I'd reached before I stopped practicing, but to go far, far beyond what I'd previously achieved.  I needed to prioritize music to its rightful place of prominence in my life.

Why?  There are many reasons that come with a sudden onslaught of passion, but when distilled with a cooler head I can pinpoint the following:

• I want to be able to play the music I love, in a way that satisfies me.
• I want to be able to share my personal joy of music with others.
• I want to research and learn all about the composers I so admire, and even the ones I don't (yet, anyway), and write about them and their music intelligently. 
• This feels like the most natural and right thing for me to do.

I can't really explain the last bullet point, but I'm okay with that.  Some things don't require explanation.

I'm fully aware that this is not going to be an easy path, and I haven't yet answered all my own questions: What exactly is it that I want to do if I commit myself to music and the piano?  What if I'm not good enough?  (Good enough for what?)  

The main point is, however, that this is a journey, and I'll never know what possibilities I may encounter or whether I'm good enough for whatever it is that I'm supposed to be good enough for, if I don't try.  Even if I don't end up doing a master's program or obtain some kind of official validation, what counts is that the journey, and the music, will be all mine.  It won't have been done for anyone else, or for anyone else's idea of what I should do with my life.   

In this blog I intend to chronicle the ups and downs, trials and tribulations, excitement and frustrations, what have you, of my journey with the piano, and with music.  

A choreographer once said when asked for what advice he'd give to aspiring dancers: "Commit to what you want to do, and stick with it," because there will be people who tell you you're doing the wrong thing, or that you can't do it.  

I am committing, however scary it is, because in doing so, I am now happier than I've ever been.