Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Chapter 17



    "All right," she said, "I've done it, I think. Now are you going to tell me why I'm doing it?"
    "Yep. Because you have to learn to walk all over again."
    She laughed. "But that's silly. I already know how to walk. In fact, I know how to run. I came second in the school sixty yard dash last sports day."
    "And one day you'll be even faster on the piano. A real race horse. But you have to learn to walk first, quite slowly and laboriously, and count as you go." Paul spread out his hands over the table, stretching his fingers. "See. You think of those ten little limbs as fingers, don't you? And treat them as fingers like the system tells you to. I mean the presently ordained system that all the books talk about. But now you have to think of them as legs, each of which learns to walk up and down the keyboard one at a time, learning all the names it needs to know to be a thinking part of the team. It's just like basketball, really, with five players on each team, working both with and against each other to create a pleasing spectacle. In this case for the ears, not the eyes, of the audience." He thought for a moment. "I suppose I should say that you actually HOP at first, not walk, because you're using just the one finger to sound out each note. You start walking when you use two fingers in a partnership, like two legs."
    "But this doesn't sound at all like what you were doing the first time we heard you play, thundering like an avalanche into the school yard. Do you think Maggie and I would have come running into your classroom if we'd heard you only hopping quietly from one key to another?"
    "Probably not. But I was only able to do what I did, and apparently summon the two of you as if I were the Pied Piper, because I had been a good little boy long ago and done my homework, which comprised a great deal of hopping from one key to another. But I don't want to make it sound like some tedious drudgery. It was actually a great deal of fun, right from the beginning. Music always sounds good, no matter how simple it is, if the student understands what he's doing. Well, it sounds good to the teacher, because he or she can hear the intelligence at work. Which means that you don't try to hop about any faster than you can name the number of the note you're playing. When you've done enough of that, the whole process becomes somewhat automatic. That is, as long as you've also paid attention to correct fingering. That's just as necessary as getting the numbers right. Great freedom and power of expression in execution can come only from great discipline. That's true of art just as it's true of any athletic activity. Sounds frightening, I know, but once you've thoroughly learned what all the small steps are, and are happy and content to take them one at a time, it all becomes quite manageable. The exercise virtually drives itself."
    "You make it all sound so easy. Both when you play, like you did when we first heard you, and when you talk about it. So why don't more people understand it like you do? I've been thinking about the times I've heard Iris play, or other organists at church, or other pianists in their homes or at public functions. I never heard anybody do what you were doing. I mean, at first I thought it was written music, some famous piece I'd never heard before, and then I began to suspect that it was actually just an exercise, something that you repeated over and over like a scale, only a lot more interesting, even without the little changes you were making. That's one of the reasons Maggie and I came in. I HAD to see what you were doing. I remember thinking "I've told them I'm not going back to piano if I have to study scales, but that person in the school is doing scales that sound interesting. What does this mean?" She paused, as if hit by a new thought. "And what does it mean that you've been in this house all this time now and we've never heard you play like that again. You've just been plunking away with one or two fingers. That sounds interesting too, but it's not the same."
    "No, it isn't. But you can't do the whole gallop with all four legs until you've trained one leg, and then two together, and then three, and then four. It's that much of a factor of simple quantity. The muscles and the nerves and the brain have to proceed with patience and attention to detail and precision. No one leaps on a horse for the first time and rides off to a steeplechase. But it's also quite easy, and very pleasant, if you can accept the initial simplicity and the need to proceed methodically. How could I know if you were capable of appreciation method? Your attitude toward scales might be sheer intuitive genius, or it might be sheer rebellion." He grinned at Sadie. "Personally I incline to the former, but that option is yet to be proven. That's why I gave you the little two finger exercise. How did you find it? Honestly."
    "It was unlike anything I'd ever been shown before, so I had no idea what you were doing but it was interesting. I don't think I've ever felt less pressure, and yet I couldn't say that I got it perfectly right off. The fingers were a touch awkward sometimes. A lot of the time they wanted to do something else. I kept thinking: this isn't a whole octave scale, and he doesn't seem at all interested in my playing with five fingers at once. What's he up to? And my Mom hasn't heard me do anything remotely like this since I was a little kid without a teacher, just fiddling with the piano keys."
    "And how did you feel about the numbers?"
    "Now that really was different. The numbers slow you down. Even that few made me think."
    "Good."
    "The solfa was easier because I've had some of that before. But I've caught on to your insistence on the numbers, so they've become important, so naturally I want to get them right, especially when I was singing out loud."
    "Well, you won't have to always do that. As you become more and more familiar with the method and the particular challenges of each part, you run your own work schedule. Singing takes a lot of energy, and the most important thing at first is to get the numbers and the fingering salted away, so you can build up the sense of structure which leads to what I guess I've been commanded to perform. That is, if you promise me you won't try to imitate me right away and thus lead yourself into the slough of frustration. Shall I go to the piano? You have to come with me, of course, and try to analyze, when I go slowly enough. You might pick up some clues.  But don't be anxious if you don't, because I'll be showing them to you anyway. In great detail, and over and over again."
    "You're really worried about me being patient enough, aren't you? How come?"
    "Because there is a lot of music - written music -  you can already play. And I imagine quite competently. But it's going to take you a while to feel as equally competent with this process. Your hands are filled with a history of contradictory habits. Those habits won't be eager to be added unto. Or contradicted. Rather like the Pharisees, you understand." They were all standing up. "But enough theory. Come and see. Let the battle begin."
    Sadie spoke up. "Are you going to play as you did when the children heard you for the first time?"
    "I take it that that is what's required. And it's probably the best way of showing how much system you can have without a book. And how much more freedom."
    "Am I allowed to watch?"
    "Of course. It's your piano. You may even feel the need to supervise against my pulling a Beethoven and hammering it to pieces. And you'll be a valuable witness. If and when Deirdre catches on to the wisdom of the method, and, human nature being what it is, starts showing it to her friends - and even enemies - and they start telling her how stupid it is, she can claim you as a supporter. I hope."
    "You keep stressing this . . . . . . . this introductory difficulty. If the method is so good, why does have such difficulty at the beginning making itself believed?"
    "Because the piano is deceptive. A bit of a liar, in a way. Did you ever try to play a trumpet? Or a violin? The beginner makes an awful noise at first, and then for quite a while. At the audio level, it really is like watching a baby learn to walk. Such a lot of stumbling about. But the piano key makes a listenable sound right away. You only have to give it a moderate thump, and the rest is done for you by a very complex mechanism. The human mind, peeking under the panel above the keyboard, is so stunned into worship by the machinery it beholds that it forgets all about the even more complex mechanism that is the human hand. If it were to put as much time into analyzing how the hand is put together as it does the hammer assembly in the piano it would start off smarter, and might eventually realize that the design of the fingers and the rules of harmony have no more initial need for written music than a horse has for wings. Watch."
    In an instant the teacher vanished, and the performer emerged. The time had come for the retreat from words, except for his one last instruction. "I'll say no more, but watch as closely as you can, and see what you can realize from what you observe."

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