Rachmaninoff Concerto #1, first movement. I was on my way to CrossFit last week, enjoying the random shuffling of my iPhone/iTunes. This piece came on, one of the Top 100 Piano Pieces of All Time, or some such collection Brian had downloaded at one point. I rarely listen to classical music anymore, for some reason. Usually, I hit the ‘advance’ button, as soon as I hear orchestral anything. This time I didn’t. I let the familiar bombasity of the piece wash over me—the stately piano chords, the rising waves of the orchestra and lyrical lines as the piano and orchestra danced together in sound. Something deep within me was touched, curious, remembering… Later that day, purging and reorganizing my downstairs office space, I took out of storage the electric keyboard we have—grand piano-weighted keys, fine sound. A wedding present to me from my new husband, twenty years ago. It rests now in the corner of my refreshed office space. As soon as I find the headphones required, I’ll finish connecting its wires and power and sit down to play, privately. In the privacy of my own ears. Maybe.
The piano bench is one of the most unfree places I know, for me.
I know some of the reasons for this, though I’ve not given it much thought for years now. Musical inclinations within me resorted long ago to vocal expressions, first in seminary choirs then in song-leadership in my various leadership callings. I’ve loved leading large gatherings of seminary students into singing-in-parts, particularly when most in the room think they cannot sing. My musicality has found good expression in these ways, though now largely relinquished with online teaching and pandemic isolation. Holding circle for women writers, then conscious feminine leaders, has offered spaces for song-leading. Red Tent and leadership sister circles have welcomed a newfound women-centric song for me, my own singing in circle and in leadership. My voice has soared in these settings of women’s voices joining together—Woman Who Loves Herself, Woman, a River of Birds, and more. I’ve not really needed any musical outlet nor considered the piano bench, for years.
Then Rachmaninoff comes on, and I found myself reveling in the sound, the timbre of the piano, dancing with an orchestra. I was reminded of a good friend, so at home at the piano bench, speaking to her own finding home there, then inviting us into a beautiful, demanding, lyrical rendition of Troubled Waters. I spoke of this to a spirit-friend this week, and was surprised at the tears that arose for me. Something here in me wants to be free, I said, but I don’t know if that’s even possible anymore. I don’t know what I would want here…
All the discomfort, shame, fear and more that comes when I sit at a piano bench has a long incubation in my early life, of course. I began with musicality lessons when I was in nursery school. These moved to actual piano lessons when I was in first grade. Mrs. Warner’s piano studio was the most respected in my small town. She was known for being disciplined, a bit severe, with an established program of individual lessons, regular studio ‘performances’ of her students for one another, yearly Auditions assessments of progress, and more. Her studio had two baby grand pianos in a living room off to the side of her farm house, at the end of a long lane. I can still remember the kelly green carpet and the scent of her space. The bathroom with the rusting rings in the sink, well-water smells. My sister and I took a lesson with her every week from first grade to senior year in high school.
Sometime when I was in junior high, well into 7-8 years of piano lessons with her, I learned that her severity lessened if I cried first. Writing these words out, part of me is a bit horrified for my little girl self, but it was a matter-of-fact discovery that made piano lessons less scary or shaming. Part of me is impressed I found a way to make these weekly lessons more bearable. I was a talented girl at the piano, after all. I learned good technique from her early on, and was fairly disciplined in my practicing habits for a young girl. At least to start. I learned that if I practiced immediately after my lesson, I would find practicing easier that week, more frequent, less fearful. I enjoyed learning the pieces that were set before me—most of them—though they were all classical and never pop-music of any kind. I’m not sure how much the enjoyment arose from the music, or from the affirmations-sought, and received with successes demonstrated in learning tasks and improvements in difficulty-levels. I always excelled in the spring, receiving evaluations of Excellent in each ‘end of year’ Auditions assessment. Ten years of Excellent ‘earned me’ a Paederewski Medal, which made Mrs. Warner simply beam. I remember my final piano lesson with her, in the Piqua Presbyterian Church where she served as organist. It was a formality more than a lesson, really, as I had been coming to her studio since I was in nursery school. I was sad to leave her, to say good-bye, but I don’t think I cried.
Sophomore year of high school, something distinct arose in my piano lessons. Mrs. Warner put Schumann’s Piano Concerto in front of me, the first movement with its audacious lines and demands. I was going to learn this piece for a competition to be held up at Bowling Green State University. The prospects of such a daunting mountain to climb appealed to my affirmation-seeking girl-self, even as the esteem in my father’s eyes widened when I brought it home. I practiced and listened to classical performances of it. The months unfolded and the time for the competition drew near. There was a piano on the stage in a huge room, with a couple people I didn’t know sitting about midway back, in the dark. I had eaten my piece of cheese, so to counter the adrenalin rush that would come at the start of the performance. I played, but not well. Or not well enough. Or…I failed…at something. I don’t even have much recollection of it, to be honest. Remembering it now, I feel mostly shame and sadness. Mrs. Warner spoke of “pushing me too soon.” We both failed, this seemed to say.
So I don’t sit at piano benches anymore. I evade the question in some fashion, when people ask if I play piano. “I don’t play piano anymore,” I will say if pressed. Or “I used to.” Or “I used to play, but no longer. I can’t even sight read anymore.” I was never very good at that anyway, even at the top of my game.
I do not know any easy way back to the bench, you see, though there are curious windows in my life opening here. The grand piano on which I ‘grew up’ rests, rebuilt and retuned, in the sanctuary of my husband’s church. I could go in pretty much at any time, even during the pandemic, to play, if I wanted. I am blessed to have access to our electric piano at home, with weighted keys. Yet to even sit at the bench today is mostly discomfort, sadness, shame, anger, fear…
I don’t sit at piano benches anymore.
I don’t reach my hands out to touch the keys.
And yet I wonder...why am I writing about it?
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