Music from the past

Last week while I was down in the basement organizing, I found some things I thought I had lost forever.

I thought I had lost my first piano book and the program from my first piano recital. But I found both.

When I was a little girl, I started picking out tunes on our Kurtzmann upright piano. I remember playing “Jesus Loves Me.”

Surprisingly, my mother discouraged my playing. She didn’t want me to play by ear. She wanted me to play by note. She herself could play by ear, but she hadn’t taken lessons long enough to learn a lot and regretted that.

I remember waiting until she went outside to do something like hang out the laundry. I’d run to the piano and plink out a song until she came back in. I thought I was doing this in secret. I found out years later that she, of course, heard me but didn’t say anything.

She talked with a local piano teacher. I was 5 years old, and this teacher usually waited to begin lessons once a child started school. But she said she’d see what I could learn.

So I started lessons. And I kept taking them until I was 12, when I started organ lessons for a year.

I had to write out the letters for each of the notes. 

My teacher wrote her instructions for me right on the book. A circle meant to practice the piece. She marked through it once it was played well enough to move on.

I had to memorize this one. I also had to memorize my piece for the recital.

A week shy of my sixth birthday, I played in my first recital. I played a song called “Voice of My Heart.” I don’t have that sheet music anymore, but I can still play a little of it by ear.

I did a Google search but couldn’t find the song. I don’t know the composer or anything about it.

Me on our front porch before we left the house for the recital. I remember I hated having to wear socks with sandals.

Some of the songs the other piano students played that evening in May 1969 were these:

“Hi Lili Hilo”

“Gentle On My Mind”

“Love Is Blue”

“Clair de Lune”

Mozart’s “Concerto in C Major”

“Beach Ball Boogie”

“Star Dust”

“Alice Blue Gown”

Lovely music from the past. I’m so glad I found a reminder.

Do you play a musical instrument? Which ones?

Playing the piano, then and now

From Microsoft images http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/images/results.aspx?qu=music&ex=2

I started picking out songs by ear on the piano when I was 4 or 5 years old.

My mother didn’t want me to play by ear, but by note, so she forbade me to play on the piano.

I played anyway, when she was out of the house.

When I was 5 years old, she let me begin piano lessons, which I took for seven years.

Today I still love to play, though I play on a keyboard instead of a piano. I play by note and by ear.

I don’t play very often, because it seems like there’s always something else to do. I recently sat down and played a while after work, and I found it relaxing and fun. I'm adding it to my "do more often" list for stress and anxiety relief.

When I was small, I would sometimes stand beside my mother as she played the piano, and I would play the tune along with her in the higher octaves. This semi-biographical poem reflects those times.

Duet

By Tina Fariss Barbour

Kurtzmann upright

my mother bought with her own money

earned at a third-shift job.

The elephantine piano captured me

as I played my whole notes,

one two three four,

rests, measures,

my knot of scales.

But sometimes I stood beside her

seated on the heavy bench and

we played together

her favorite, “Hi-Lili, Hi-Lo.”

She played by ear across the keys,

singing like Leslie Caron,

smiling at me,

my finger following.

What hobbies or interests did you develop in childhood that you still enjoy?

OCD and the piano recital

Early guilt and early perfectionism. Early signs of obsessive-compulsive disorder?

When I was about 5 years old, I started picking out tunes on our piano.

I remember sitting at our black Kurtzmann upright piano in the living room and sounding out “Jesus Loves Me.”

But my mother didn’t want me to play the piano by ear. She wanted me to wait and learn the notes. She played mostly by ear and saw that as inferior to playing by note.

So she told me not to play any more. I did anyway. I’d wait until she went outside to do something like hang up clothes to dry, and then I’d run to the piano and play.

Years later, my mother told me she could hear me playing but just didn’t say anything.

She talked with a local piano teacher, who agreed to try lessons with me. I started lessons and thrived on it.

The following spring, Mrs. Carwile decided to include me in her yearly piano recital. Her piano students at a local elementary school gave a yearly recital. For this recital, I would be a “special guest” and play.

She picked out a song for me, “Voice of the Heart,” Opus 51, by Henri van Gael. She modified which parts I would play to fit my abilities.

Then she broke the big news. She wanted me to memorize the song and play with no music.

I don’t remember being afraid at that point, but my mother was worried. Mrs. Carwile reassured her that I could do it.

I remember practicing and practicing, getting ready for the recital, which was taking place exactly one week before my sixth birthday.

My mother made me a long white dress with a white satin ribbon to wear for the occasion. I wore white sandals, and, much to my embarrassment, white socks with the sandals.

Standing on our front porch before we left for the piano recital.

I was excited about playing, but I also was very shy. It was difficult for me to be around so many other children backstage at the school. I remember that someone pinned a carnation to my dress.

All the other students sat on the stage, but I sat with my family in the audience. About halfway through the program, Mrs. Carwile called me up on the stage.

She asked me what my name was and then she asked me how old I was.

“Five,” I said.

But I felt guilty saying five. I was just a week from being six. Shouldn’t I say I was almost six?

Even at that age, I understood that Mrs. Carwile wanted me to be five for the audience. She wanted to impress upon them my young age before I sat down and played a song without the sheet music in front of me.

But I felt guilty.

Then I walked over to the piano and sat down. I was afraid, but I didn’t think I had any choice. That was what I was supposed to do.

I started to play and my fingers moved automatically through the song. I had practiced so much that I played without thinking.

I made one mistake. I hit one wrong note.

No one noticed, my mother said. I don’t think she noticed. But I did. I knew I had not played the song perfectly.

From the outside, my first piano recital was a good experience. I took piano lessons for another six years and took one year of organ lessons. I made it through other performances.

Today, I still love playing the piano, though I play on a keyboard now. I play by note and by ear, a combination.

But looking back on my first recital, I wonder if my OCD was showing itself in subtle ways: worrying about whether or not I was being totally truthful about my age, and being focused on the one mistake I made and not the rest of the performance.

If you have OCD, do you remember the first signs of it? Even if you don’t have OCD, do you remember a childhood moment when you felt great anxiety such as performance-based anxiety?