: Remembrance of Things Past
< Lively toy piano music plays softly in the background >
When I was a wee lad
About the age of 6,
65 years ago.
My Father said “Ricky my son,
Now’s come the time
That you. . . . Started. . . .Taking. . . . Piano. . . . . Lessons”
<sound of a phono needle ripping across a record, followed by Bach’s 2 Part Invention #1 playing softly in background>
Play piano? Well, OK. I didn’t think I had a choice in the matter. To start off, my father attempted to give me piano lessons, but I relentlessly gummed up the works by questioning everything he told me to do. So after, umm, maybe 6 months (a year?) of this, my father gave up and my parents hired this strict authoritarian European woman.
Mrs. Randolfi
<The name ‘Mrs. Randolfi ‘ echoes over and over fading gradually, whilst ominous music plays softly. Maybe the “Wolves” theme from Peter and the Wolf>
OK – I hear you. Enough with the sound effects. Get on with the story.
Anyway . . . Mrs. Randolfi was a strict authoritarian European woman – she scared the bejeebers out of me. But she got me to learn my scales, got me to use the pedal sparingly, and all that good piano stuff.
Now all of this is not to say that I was or am even a decent classical pianist. Halfway decent? Perhaps on a good day.
Mrs. Randolfi also knew how to bring out the competitive instinct in me. If I did a good job of learning a piece, I could put a gold star sticker on the page of music.
And if I did really well? O-o-o-o! Then I got to put a sticker of a warship or a jet airplane or something athletic or otherwise ‘manly’. Yes!
And, I got to enter music competitions. In my last year of studying with Mrs. Randolfi, I tied for third place in the Intermediate Division. That was 60 years ago. And then. . . . puberty happened.
<cue the strings from Psycho>
Meanwhile, back here in November 2019. . . .
As part of my retirement regime, I have taken a solemn self-oath to continue trying new things and get out of my comfort zone. And as part of this regime, when I practice piano I have been trying to play (however poorly) music that I would not normally play.
Rummaging around the house, I found some 100 year old music books that originally were my father’s when he was studying piano as a child; and I remember using a few them when I taking lessons.
One of books I found was the music to Songs Without Words by Mendelssohn. I had no memory of ever playing these, so this seemed like a good choice.
Now I’m not a big Mendelssohn fan (go ahead call me a snob – it’s OK), but I starting diligently playing through these pieces, maybe 3 or 4 a day. I was about ½ way through the book, when I turned the page and there, on “Spinning – Song” was one of Mrs. Randolfi’s stickers. I wish I could articulate the weird set of emotions that passed through me when I saw this. I had no memory over ever having played this piece, but there was the proof. And, as you can see – Yes! I scored a home run on this piece!
And was I able to play this piece on re-visiting it? I think I did a halfway decent job.
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Nov 16th, Saturday, 7:00PM-9:00 – Better Off Dead at Ruthie’s BBQ, 64 1/2 Chestnut Ave, Montclair (973) 509-1134
Better Off Dead’s music will be all the way decent, yessiree. No halfway measures for us. We will be thoroughly, 100%, decent. In fact, sometimes we even do that one better and go over the top and get indecent (although it’s a family friendly crowd at Ruthies, so we’ll keep that to a minimum). Remember to BYO.
http://www.betteroffdead.com/home.htm/
http://www.ruthiesbbq.com/