The Pianist from Syria

by Aeham Ahmad

“Why?”

  “You’re not supposed to skip school, you’re supposed to learn.”

  “You can’t learn anything here.”

  When it came time to say good-bye, my father and the principal hugged each other. It was almost noon. I didn’t have to go to class that day. The three of us went home.

  “Why are you doing this?” my father asked.

  Once again, I told him everything. About the bullies, the drugs, the inept teachers. How I hated this school!

  “I won’t punish you,” my father said. “But you have to continue going to school. Please promise me you won’t skip class anymore.”

  I thought about it for a moment, then I said, as diplomatically as I could, “I can’t promise. But I’ll try.”

  — CHAPTER EIGHT —

  I continued to lead a double life. At school, I was still the pathetic little radish, avoiding the bullies as much as I could, smiling at them to avoid their cruel power games. But when I entered our store, I entered a new world. My world. A place full of discoveries.

  Of course, I kept skipping school. I was much more careful now, but that was about the only thing that changed. From that day on, the principal regularly checked my attendance. Thankfully, he wasn’t in school most of the time. I had no idea where he went, but all I had to do was casually walk past his office door and see if it was closed. If so, I was in the clear and could make my way toward the wall, then, as quick as lightning, climb over it, get on my bike, dash to our shop, and make myself a hot cup of 3 in 1. And finally take a deep breath.

  I began to explore music more and more, some days playing for hours. I learned the names of certain chords and began varying the intervals: I’d play a note and explore different chords built on it, a seventh, a ninth, or an eleventh. Then I’d start rearranging the chords to see how that changed the effect.

  Sometimes I just sat there, lost in thought. Imagining what life would be like if I were like the boys in my class, giving in to peer pressure, smoking hash and chasing after girls. Sometimes I thought of what it would be like to have my own family, a wife and children, and wondered if I would be a good father. Other times, I imagined being a famous musician, admired by others, flirting with women. Someone who wasn’t a radish.

  There were days when I simply listened to music. For hours and hours. The Taksim Trio, three gifted musicians from Istanbul, who blended Gypsy and Arabic music with jazz. Marcel Khalife, the virtuoso oud player and composer from Lebanon, who managed to play the ancient instrument in a stunningly new way, and who used music to rage against injustice. And time and time again I listened to Ziad Rahbani, my hero.

  As an artist, he was overtly political, full of poetry, and without restraints. Rahbani came from a Lebanese family of famous artists. His father and uncle’s band, the Rahbani Brothers, had appeared in musicals and movies, and were widely admired. And his mother—Fairouz—was a legend in the Arab world, whose music was the soundtrack of several generations. When Ziad Rahbani was ten, he wrote his first poems, and when the Lebanese Civil War broke out in 1975, he had already released three solo albums. He was only nineteen years old.

  I was spellbound. He was a free spirit, a free man. An eccentric, who was infamous for canceling concerts on the spur of the moment if he didn’t feel like performing. He criticized the hateful rhetoric you hear in too many churches and mosques, and exposed injustice wherever he saw it. One of his songs is called “Shou Hal Ayyam,” “What Are These Days?” and is available on Spotify. One of its lines goes like this: “They say the rich give money to the poor. How come, then, so few have so much, while so many have so little?” And it ends with: “All this hidden money, can’t be counted, pulled from people’s pockets, where it belongs.”

  If you want to know how I felt in those years, how melancholy I was, how saturated in music, please go to Spotify and type in “Bala Wala Shi,” “Without Anything Else,” the title of Rahbani’s famous love song. He sings: “I love you, only you, without anything else. Without your fancy clothes, without anything tacky, without the friends of your friends, be they annoying or nice, without your parents’ sermons, without fake eyelashes, without lipstick and heavy makeup, without any of that nonsense. Come, let’s sit in the shade, for the shade belongs to no one.”

  How I loved this song. I was impressed by how Rahbani merged Arabic folk music with pop and jazz, creating something completely new. That was where I wanted to go. That was what I wanted to do.

  One day, an acquaintance gave me a poem he had written and asked me if I wanted to set it to music. I decided to do it, to take the risk. For me, that was unprecedented.

  At the music school, we had been taught that music was something overpowering. Something that made you feel insignificant in the face of towering geniuses. You weren’t supposed to simply write a song—no, you were expected to go to a conservatory for five years and study composition first. That’s what I had been taught. Ziad Rahbani helped me rid myself of all that.

  The name of my first song was “Meen Illi Allak,” “Who Told You That?”—a love song. For days I pondered what key I should set it in, then thought about a melody, and came up with a series of chords: G minor, C minor, D minor, based on the harmonic minor scale, as it is referred to in Western music, a scale most closely resembling Arabic tonality.

  Whenever someone came into the store, I slammed the piano lid shut, feeling as if I’d been caught. Even though there was nothing to see.

  When my little song was finished, I played it for a few friends. But not for my father. I was terrified of his critique. I could only imagine what he might say: That it would get me nowhere. That it would only distract me from classical music. He might have sneered at my song. I didn’t want that; it would have killed me.

  I wrote only two other songs during that period. Later, in the midst of the war, when the songs just came bursting out of me, I realized one thing: Without these quiet hours in the shop, this time of sowing, I could have never been so productive later on. At the time, I simply immersed myself in sounds and ideas. It took years for them to percolate and break through to the surface. By that time, the war had already broken out.

  There’s a saying in Syria: The tea has to steep. It takes time. You need to have the patience to let the tea leaves become saturated—that’s the only way to achieve perfection. For me, it was the same. Some musicians tell me that my melodies feel fresh, my chords original. It all started back in that store, when I had the peace and quiet to find myself.

  I wasn’t singing in those days. I didn’t like my voice, didn’t think I was good enough. I asked others to perform the songs, and I simply accompanied them on the piano. Even when the bombs were falling, when I composed one song after another, I still wouldn’t sing. I preferred to accompany someone, even if they were completely untalented, than to find the courage to raise my own voice.

  That was to happen only in the middle of the siege, when the other men stayed at home depressed and I had no one to accompany anymore. Only then did I work up the courage to push the piano out into the ruined city, close my eyes, and sing.

  * * *

  As you might expect, my final grades were terrible. In Syria, your high school degree is called the baccalauréat, just like in France. After the Turks had left our country, Syria became a French mandate between 1923 and 1943. Among other things, the French completely changed the educational system. For your baccalauréat, you could achieve a total of 320 points. I had 118 points—three more than the minimum required for graduation, 115. I had graduated, but only by a hair breadth.

  How could I have done better? I was hardly ever in class. It’s a good thing that I had other plans.

  Soon, I was working as a music teacher. Syrian society was changing, and the talent shows were providing the soundtrack. SuperStar had been the forerunner in 2003, followed by Star Academy and Arab Idol. Lebanon’s pop culture crashed into our living rooms like a Technicolor wave. We saw images of women in elegant dresses, hunky young men, ou
trageous hairdos. It turned people’s heads and challenged the strict morals. It fed the illusion that anyone could achieve anything, including you! Even if you come from nothing, even if you’re a nobody. All you need is talent. One of the guys on TV always said, “We’ll see you in Beirut!” And that became our slogan, too.

  The next day, my students were murmuring, “Did you see the guy from Gaza yesterday?”

  “He’s a genius. Now he’s in the final round.”

  “Why are you so excited?” I asked them.

  “No one from Gaza ever reached the finals before. And next time it’ll be someone from, say, Algeria. Who knows?”

  In order to vote on your favorite contestant, you had to call or text a certain number. It cost you ten Syrian pounds.

  “I would never waste my money on something like that,” I told them. “Just to vote in a song contest!”

  No, I wasn’t in the least interested in those shows. The music was primitive, the lyrics shallow. But our business profited from the hype. People would watch SuperStar and then come to our store the next day, asking about classes. After all, every superstar has to start somewhere, usually with solfège and simple chords. It was a lucky coincidence that we had opened our store during those years.

  One day, a few weeks after our store had opened, a man came in and asked about piano lessons for his daughter.

  “You’re lucky,” my father said. “We have a highly respected pianist working for us.” He pointed at me. “That’s him, Aeham, our piano instructor.”

  “That scrawny kid?”

  “Yes! He went to the state music school; he studied under Vladimir Tsaritzky.” That didn’t sound too bad.

  “How much an hour does it cost?”

  “Two hundred pounds,” my father said, about forty cents.

  “What? That’s too much!”

  “Well, normally, we charge three hundred pounds per hour,” my father said, making his opening gambit. Haggling was in his blood, as it was with everyone in our family. “It’s an incredible price! Do you have any idea how much you’d have to pay for a private lesson at the music school? Five hundred pounds!”

  They kept going back and forth for a while. Meanwhile, I was wondering what my father was doing. I had no experience as a teacher. Why was he trying to sell me so hard?

  “All right, two hundred pounds,” the man said, relenting at last. “But the lessons will have to be at my house.”

  “We can’t do that,” my father said. “I need him here in the store.” That was true. How could a blind man tend to a music store? As capable as my father was, there was one thing he couldn’t do—count money. For a blind person, the Syrian bills were indistinguishable. Time and time again my father had been cheated.

  But the man kept insisting that the lessons would have to be at his house. Finally, my father relented. “All right,” he said, “then we’ll just close up the shop during that time and I’ll come over with Aeham.”

  Three times we walked over there, which was half an hour away. After that, my father convinced the family that it would be better for the girl to practice on a real piano, just like we had in our store. Not on the keyboard.

  From then on, everything went smoothly. The man referred six other students to us. I enjoyed teaching. After only three months, we had several dozen students.

  My father taught the oud, accordion, and violin, while I taught solfège and piano. That was unique in Yarmouk. There were several shops selling violins and guitars, but they didn’t offer music lessons, and didn’t repair instruments.

  After a while I had an idea: I organized my students into groups. Normally, music was something for the elites. Lessons were expensive and out of reach for most people. Not to mention the cost of the instruments. So I began teaching groups of ten. Each student paid five hundred Syrian pounds for eight lessons per month, about one dollar. In addition to that—and this was our second innovation—we started selling instruments on credit. That was my idea: music for all.

  My father was strictly opposed, saying it would be impossible to learn an instrument that way. He felt the quality would suffer. “We’re talking about classical music here,” he said. “We’re not making a stew.”

  But not just that. “They’ll take the instruments and run,” he warned me, “and you’ll stand there, empty-handed.” And yes, that did happen. Six or seven students signed up for guitar lessons, we gave them an instrument, and they were never seen again. Still, I insisted on continuing my experiment. And it worked. In fact, it was a great success. Soon, we had two hundred students, all of whom needed an instrument. We had our work cut out for us.

  I kept drinking massive amounts of 3 in 1. And one day I realized that this was, in fact, my unwritten business plan: 3 in 1!

  First and foremost, the group classes saved me energy. Second, we sold a lot more instruments. And last but not least, the number of students grew rapidly. Bottom line, we suddenly had a good income.

  Music for all! In other parts of the world, this might seem trivial. But we lived in a country where classical music was considered a status symbol of the rich. Any form of music—apart from folk music—was something for the one percent. Not with me! Music for all! Mozart for all! No arrogance, no snobbery. My father had opened the world of music to me. I wanted to pass this privilege on to as many people as I could. That was my revolution.

  I enjoyed this period very much. I was determined to do things differently than my abusive teachers. The students liked me. I shared little jokes with them and was passionate, trying to ignite their enthusiasm, motivating them with praise and appreciation.

  “You’re good!” I would say. “If you’d only practice half an hour more each day, you’d be even better. Then you’d be very good!”

  My father had a friend who was blind, a sought-after studio musician. He was probably Syria’s foremost expert in keyboards. Whenever a new model was released, he bought it and took the time to explore its peculiarities. He played in countless bands. He had a five-year-old daughter named Sarah, and he sent her to me: I was supposed to help her pass the entrance exam to the state music school.

  Sarah was small and cute and pudgy. Her favorite thing was dancing. But playing piano? No! Boring!

  “Why are we practicing piano? Why aren’t we dancing?” she asked.

  “Look how my fingers are gliding across the keys. Do you know what we’re doing here? We’re dancing with our fingers. Playing piano is a form of dancing, a finger dance.” That made sense to her.

  One time we watched Amadeus together, the Hollywood movie about Mozart. During one of the ballroom scenes, I said to her, “See? Mozart wrote dance music!” That, too, helped motivate her.

  And if she didn’t want to play at all, I didn’t make her. I gave her time off and sat with her mother in the kitchen. I suggested to her parents that they reward their daughter with chocolate and pocket money. It worked. I always had to chuckle when I saw Sarah. Her blind father, his unending ambition, her lack of interest—I recognized myself in her.

  And Sarah persisted. She passed the entrance exam to the state music school, learned solfège, and mastered her semiannual performances. Why? Because her parents persisted, they kept her accountable with the right blend of carrot and stick.

  Children have many different dreams. Today they might want to be an astronaut; tomorrow, a ballerina. You can’t bend completely to their will. Often, they don’t know what’s good for them. It’s up to the parents to set the course. If it were completely up to the kid, they’d never learn anything. It’s good to make children practice an instrument. When I was young, I was upset because my father was so stern—today I am grateful.

  The last I heard, Sarah was in Damascus, practicing for her entrance exam to the conservatory. I would be very proud if she made it.

  I had only one other student who was more talented than she, a large, heavyset man named Mohammed Munaf. He simply appeared in our store one day, saying he wanted to learn how to play the o
ud. I liked him at once.

  “All right,” I said. “But let’s start with solfège.”

  “Really? I’d rather learn to play the oud. I’m not that interested in singing,” he said.

  “Please, you should listen to your teacher,” I said sternly. He relented, and we had our first lesson in solfège.

  A few days later, he came back. But he hadn’t done his homework assignment.

  “Please don’t be mad, but I’d really prefer to play the oud,” he said.

  This time I gave in. “If you insist,” I said. “Do you have an oud?”

  “No.”

  “I think you should buy a used one. They’re the least expensive.” I showed him a few models. “May I ask where you work?”

  “I’m a salesman in a sporting goods store.”

  I knew how poorly paid such a job was. In Syria, the average salesperson earned four thousand Syrian pounds per month, less than ten dollars. We began talking, and he told me of his dream. He wanted to become a musician and start his own band. In fact, he’d been dreaming about it for a long time. But his parents were poor, he’d been forced to quit school, and now he was selling running shoes.

  I picked up an inexpensive oud. “Here, take it. I’m loaning it to you. Just don’t tell my father.”

  He took off, beaming with joy. And from then on, Mohammed Munaf never stopped practicing. He must have been playing day and night. And he was talented, absorbing the instrument as if it were a vitamin he had been lacking all his life.

  The Arabic short-necked oud, like the violin, has no frets. That makes it hard to hit the right note. One day, I assigned him a difficult piece by Riad al-Sunbati. From the very beginning, he placed his fingers correctly. Then he played the next section, making almost no mistakes.

  “Wonderful,” I said encouragingly. “Go on.” Half an hour later, he was done with the piece. I was astonished. We still had a few minutes left—our lesson wasn’t over. So we went to the computer and I showed him video clips with classical oud performances by Riad al-Sunbati from the ’60s and ’70s. Munaf was enthralled. This was exactly his kind of music. I explained the various musical references to him.