There's a piano at my in-laws' house that I've paid little attention to in the last several years. The excuses of "It's been so long since I played" or "I really don't want to focus on the reading of the notes with the intent to process the notes in the plonking of the keys" have built up until I finally just sat down and found two books, one being popular music of the 40s, 50s, and 60s and the other Disney songs. I played for a while, the years away from the piano quite evident in my execution, slow with many fumblings. I found that despite that, I had many unremembered things I'd learned in seven years of weekly lessons.
My lessons were taken in the small front room in the home of a Mrs. B.J. Woodall. B.J. standing for Bertha Jane and I can hear her in my mind still saying "How a mother can name her child Bertha Jane... it always made me think of a fat elephant... so I'm B.J." There was no way I was calling this older, no nonsense lady B.J., so she was Mrs. Woodall. Her home was about instruments and rocks. Both she and her husband were rock hounds, the serious kind that belonged to clubs that traveled to far away places like New Mexico to find rocks like the desert rose rock. Her specimens were on display on one side of her living room and to the other side there was a piano, an organ, and an accordion, also with a few favorite rock finds sitting proudly across the top of the piano and next to the accursed metronome, a simple nod to the two great passions of her life. She taught all three instruments and she had great hopes that once I had learned all I could of piano from her, I would be down for the other two instruments. I finished up my piano lessons during my senior year of high school, and like most eighteen year olds, I was ready to move on... and not with an organ or an accordion.
The grand focus of those many years of lessons was chords. At the time, I thought this was probably a direct result of her being a church pianist and organist, and she promised that once the time came for me to pick up organ lessons, my chord work was the great foundation and that would help me in learning accordion as well. Whatever my young thoughts were, chords are the foundation for any piece of music, determining key and the underlying sound. It often seemed tedious and headache inducing. I fought many bitter tears and hateful thoughts as a teenager being forced to fill dozens of lined music sheets with penciled notes of songs she set for me to transpose. Transposing is much like algebra to me. I did it and never looked back other that to shudder when my thoughts got close to remembering (like now).
But for all that, my time at the piano today was enjoyable. The Disney book of music lead me to discover the Sherman Brothers (think most early Disney music like Mary Poppins, The Aristocats, "It's A Small World, and the non Disney Chitty Chitty Bang Bang) favored really, really, really wonky chords, especially the G diminished 7th. I stopped playing the first time I came across it, and not because I didn't recognize it, but that I did. It's been twenty years. TWENTY. And this random chord, hidden away in the middle of song that was not even remotely in the key of G demanded my attention and my fingers knew instinctively where to go.
For several months now, I have considered what I'm giving to my kids, and what other adults I've put into their lives are giving to my kids as well. I'm also more aware these days of what I am giving to other young people in my life that aren't my kids. I think it goes without saying that I don't mean materially what I'm giving, but the things I want to be part of their foundation in life that twenty years from now my kids will find value in. I want my kids to have a clear idea of why they hold onto the values I and other adults impart on them in these early years.
Seven years of sitting on a piano bench beside Mrs. Woodall, providing proof of my practice, explaining my lack of practice (which was usually along the lines of 'my dog ate my homework'), promising myself to one day shred my chord book, crying over hand cramps because my short fingers burned against reaching that full octave for months and months, respectfully hating having to learn syncopated timing and that dreadful piece of music "Beat me Daddy, Eight to the Bar", and vowing to torch that blasted metronome that mocked me with every tick and tock that clicked at me, saying "Too. slow...... not. fast. e. nough."
You would think that after all that, I would not sit down today and find any value in G diminished 7th, but it was there. It was self satisfaction that I had remembered a long ago lesson, it was the love of music that Mrs. Woodall shared with me, it was her patience in teaching, it was her scariness in demanding a job well done, it was her praise in a well played piece of music, and it was the sharing of her life with mine. Mrs. Woodall passed away several years ago, and I have always had a sense of guilt over dropping out of her life so efficiently. I had learned all I could from her and then I had moved on with the next phase of my life. We exchanged Christmas cards a few times, and then one year it was returned as undeliverable, where I learned she had passed. I could say that was life, but it does little to assuage what I feel now that the chance to verbalize how her presence in my life shored up my foundation. Simple lessons, the sharing of values, being a part of my foundation and echoing truths twenty years later... for only one hour a week for seven years... such a minuscule bit of what we call time. When I consider what I want for my life right now, I want to be her, to brush against others and leave them more solidly along their path. I desperately want that for my own children; to have people in their lives that will quietly show the importance of having values and sticking to them, to have the gentle assurance that what they are learning now will echo throughout their years and guide their steps, and to have that simple G diminished 7th chord that becomes a trigger reminder of why I want these things for myself and my children.
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