The Piano Exam
Page 1
THE PIANO EXAM
Gordon Lawrie
Copyright 2012 Gordon Lawrie
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THE PIANO EXAM
“Hello?”
“Is Mary Maxwell-Hume there?”
“Speaking. How can I help you?” The voice at the other end of the line has an English accent, educated, certainly not working class.
“Do you give piano lessons?”
“That rather depends. Who are the lessons for?”
“Me.”
“And you are? I’m sorry I didn’t catch your name.”
“I’m sorry. I should’ve introduced myself. My name’s Brian Reid and I’m looking for a couple of piano lessons.”
“Just two? It usually takes a little longer than that,” the voice replies drily.
A good start, I think. This woman does sardonic, it seems. Don’t encourage her, I think inwardly. “I was given your name by a friend. I was hoping you might be able to help me.”
“Which friend?” the voice asks.
“Joe Mackay.” I want to call him ‘Little’ Joe Mackay because that’s what his brother - and my best man - has always called him, but I manage to stop myself.
“You mean that pathetic ironmonger with the shop in Morningside?”
I don’t know how to reply to this. Joe does indeed have an ironmongery shop at the foot of Morningside Road in Edinburgh’s Southside, but I don’t normally like to acknowledge that he’s ‘pathetic’ to perfect strangers. Actually, he is pretty pathetic, but I decide not to acknowledge this for the moment.
“You remember Joe?”
“I remember Joseph Mackay, yes. Good address, Merchiston Terrace, as I recall.”
“That’s the one.”
“Far too heavy on the left hand. No sense of rhythm on the right.”
This is alarming. Does she discuss all of her pupils with perfect strangers?
“Do you discuss all of your pupils with perfect strangers?” I ask.
“Only the execrable ones. But I succeeded with Joseph.”
“You did?”
“I persuaded him to sell his piano. He had a Bechstein Grand which belonged in better hands. Advised him to try another instrument.”
“Such as?”
“A sat-nav. Any noise it makes is beyond his control.”
Wow. To think this woman was recommended to me by Joe Mackay himself. I need to update her, however.
“Joe only partially followed your advice,” I inform her.
“Oh?” It comes out as a low growl.
“He sold his Bechstein, but he bought a guitar instead.”
“Not a sat-nav?”
“He had one already, as it happened. In his VW Passat. Although I’ve never seen him use it, now that I think about it.” I pause for a moment, then add, “Perhaps he can’t get it in tune.” It’s meant to be a joke, trying to lighten the conversation.
“I don’t suppose he was able to tune a sat-nav,” the woman suggests to me. She goes on. “Please tell me it’s not one of those awful electric guitar things he’s bought. They’re so crude and indelicate.”
“Indeed it is, Ms. Maxwell-Hume.”
“With a stupidly loud amplifier?” She’s pleading for a good answer.
“Afraid so.”
“In which case the whole world will hear how unmusical he actually is. Perhaps I should have encouraged him more in his piano playing. At least he didn’t have one of those awful electric keyboard things.” Oh dear, I think, but that can wait a while.
“I’ve never heard Joe, either on the piano or on guitar,” I tell her. “He might be better than me.”
“That would be good for his ego. He’d then only be the second-worst musician I’ve ever heard. However, I’m sure you didn’t call me to discuss Joseph. You would like me to give you two piano lessons?”
“I didn’t literally mean two. But I don’t need too many.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” Mary Maxwell-Hume replies down the phone. Ouch. “What are your aims, Mr. Reid?”
Now this is one I’m ready for, because I happen to be a teacher, a depute headteacher in fact, so I know all about ‘aims and objectives’. Aims and objectives are things you claim to have thought about before you start, are working towards, and are usually far removed from where you end up.
“I’d like to pass a piano exam,” I tell her. “Grade Three.”
“Why Grade Three?” Mary Maxwell-Hume asks.
“Well… Actually, I’m not sure why I’m doing Grade Three, except that it seems to be the grade my school pupils all seem to try. I don’t want to be doing simpler stuff than them, frankly. I couldn’t live it down.”
“Hmm,” she replies. “We shall see. So you’re a teacher too? And what kind of piano do you have, Mr. Reid?”
I pause, take a deep breath, then tell her. “A Technics SX PC-26.” Actually, it’s my pride and joy.
There’s a long silence at the other end of the line, then a low growling noise.
“That doesn’t sound like any make of piano I’ve ever heard of, Mr. Reid.”
“It’s an electric piano,” I confess.
“There are pianos and electric keyboards,” she insists. “You seem to have one of the latter.”
“I understand you don’t like them, but I live in a flat and it’s only fair on the neighbours given that I’m not very good.”
For some reason this show of humility seems to soften her. “Ah well,” she says, “I suppose the Good Lord sends me all sorts. If you work, you’d probably like an early evening time, on your way home. I can fit you in on Thursday at six.”
“Oh yes, thank you, Ms. Maxwell-Hume. I’ll look forward to it.” It’s relief, rather than pleasure, which makes me say that. In truth I wish I’d never phoned at all.
“So will I, Mr. Reid. Let’s hope we don’t disappoint each other, shall we? I charge thirty pounds per lesson, by the way,” and then she gives me directions to her house.
Almost as an afterthought, she asks, “Have you had lessons before, Mr. Reid?”
Have I had lessons before? Have I had lessons before? Oh yes.
The first piano teacher I had was actually a teacher at my school, a woman called Lex who was the head of the music department. We had a nice relationship, but I was limited to doing lessons in school, at lunchtime or at the end of the day, and neither of us was really in a position to give it our fullest commitment. Besides, she felt uncomfortable charging me anything like the going rate, and we were both aware that I was also her line manager in the school. How could you tell her boss that he’s a waste of space on the piano? How could she give me a ticking off for not doing enough practice ten minutes after I’ve had a go at her for being late for her class (as she often was). We got on great, but our friendships at work were too precious to both of us to allow them to be spoiled over such trivia as piano lessons. As Lex herself put it, “this is too delicate, Brian.” Then she gave me a kiss on the cheek and a hug, and that was that.
And so I sought out professional help from the traditional sources - postcards in newsagents’ shops, ads on the internet, and of course classified adverts in the local newspapers. Edinburgh - where I live in a basement flat very near to the West End, by the way - has only one local paper, the Edinburgh Evening News, but it has other freebies, or at least it did then - The Herald and Post, and - on the buses - The Metro. The Evening News offered just one option, an older, middle-class woman called Yvonne who gave over thirty lessons per week in her own home, far too close to my sc
hool. She was nice, but at work I kept hearing whispered tales of my excruciatingly bad playing. I needed more privacy than she could offer.
I found Dave through his website. Dave was a tall, incredibly thin man with thick glasses, a shaven head, an accent halfway between Essex and Edinburgh, and a pronounced lisp. On my first visit, he asked me to play something - anything - so that he could judge my ability, at the conclusion of which he asked me what I would like to be able to play. When I replied, “I really like Bach”, he replied “So do I, which is why I will never allow someone as bad as you to go anywhere near his music.” That ended my only lesson with Dave.
Martin was a student at Edinburgh university. He wasn’t a music student, you understand, and he had no qualifications at all, but he played keyboards in an electronica band and was looking to supplement his student loan by giving lessons. He was the only teacher I had whose face didn’t collapse on hearing that I possessed a Technics SX PC-26; he was also the only teacher who insisted that I learn to play the piano (or keyboard) standing up. (“It’s how any modern band plays it, man. Sitting at a keyboard is