Wednesday, January 30, 2013

The Piano Players


Don and I were introduced to the piano in 1949. That must be the year because I remember the old upright we started on, and the vague memories of practicing on it. That was when we lived on Lafountain Street. We moved to East Sycamore Street in 1950 and that is the place at which most of my piano memories reside.
Don's son Lee  looking like a natural on the old Spinet, 1967
One of the first additions to our east side home was a new Spinet piano, a dark one with a shiny walnut finish. It sounded much better than the old clunker we had been pounding on, but along with the new piano came the edict that we were to increase our practice time from half an hour to a full hour each day - seven days a week. That is no small assignment for a ten year old, especially one that is not especially inspired by the opportunity to play a piano. That was me. I was a clock-watcher with eyes locked on the moving hand until the last minute slowly and finally clicked by, playing not a second longer than required, even stopping in the middle of a song - gone.

I like music and have always taken pride that I could read it and play the piano, but it has been a regret that the act of playing did not mesmerize me - like some who play past the clock, captivated by the rhythm of their moving hands as they unlock harmonic sounds of beauty. They are the ones bestowed with a special gift not granted to me.

Don and I walked downtown once a week. Our destination for five years was a building across from the Isis Theater on Main Street, a half block south of Sycamore. We climbed the stairs to the second floor studio of Sunshine Fitch, our teacher. Don carried three dollars in his pocket for two half-hour lessons. I don’t remember the cost for certain, but that sum is close. I don’t recall which of us took our lesson first, or if we alternated week by week, but the one waiting would sit quietly in the room while the other played the week’s assignment and received instruction for the following. Sometimes the one waiting would hang out in the narrow hall, but the starkly bare walls and dim lights offered a less stimulating environment than the studio so we didn’t linger there very long.

Miss Fitch was a spinster in her fifties. I wondered what happened to her and did an online check of the local newspaper, The Kokomo Tribune. There was an obituary listing for one Gladys Sunshine Fitch - born in 1897, died in 1986. That had to be her. I also found several announcements advertising piano recitals by the students of “Gladys Sunshine Fitch”, one in 1945. Don and I were in at least three of her recitals. Official recital photos showed the class and Miss Fitch grouped around a piano. She was nice a lady, slim, of medium height, and with glasses covering a kind face and sad eyes. I never knew anything more about her or saw her anywhere other than at her yearly recitals.

Sunshine Fitch's Recital, c1950 - Joe and Don, 1st row far right
I learned about fear and stage-fright from those recitals. I suffered through them with my stomach in knots, my pulse racing, and my hands trembling uncontrollably. It was a wonder I could play. I remember three pieces I played. “Little Black Sambo” was the tune I performed at my concert debut. I had it memorized and played through it as fast as I my fingers would traverse the keys – to heck with tempo or timing, just get it over. It was an innocuous tune and I no longer remember the melody. I performed “Under the Double Eagle” during a later recital. That title popped into my mind only after I started writing this piece. I looked it up on YouTube as I was curious as to what it sounded like, and found it to be a popular song I’ve heard many times. Unfortunately, the versions I heard on YouTube had nothing in common with the song I remember playing sixty years ago. Don and I teamed up to play a duet of “The Merry Widow Waltz” for one of our last recitals. That seemed to go well.
Sunshine Fitch's Recital, c1952 - Joe 2nd row left, Don back row center
We stopped taking lessons in 1954 and seldom sat down at the piano after that. I attended Hoosier Boys State three years later, between my junior and senior years. It was at Indiana University in Bloomington, and housed in the men’s quad, a big sprawling edifice. I walked by a lounge on several occasions and noticed a skinny black kid playing the piano. I stopped one evening when there was a small group of boys standing around the piano listening to him. He was pretty good. I mentioned that I had taken lessons and he got up and wanted me to play something. I should have kept my mouth shut. I wasn’t fishing for an invite, but that was what it must have sounded like. The next thing I knew I was sitting at the piano, but after an awkward minute of fumbling, admitted I no longer knew any songs . He said he never took lessons, had learned it by ear, and would have given anything to have had the chance. That one hour of practice had always been a chore to me, but a piano at home, and a chance for instruction, would have been a priceless gift to him.

Mary bought a piano shortly after we were married and took lessons for a while. She’s added a couple of guitars, and bought a concertina for me at Christmas in 1984 when she worked at Down Home Guitar. I liked the idea of a small portable instrument, and was a bit more successful with it. I sat up my studio in a downstairs room and taught myself to play. I was fairly consistent for several months then something intervened and I sat it aside, not getting back to it for several years. I’ve picked it up more than once since then, and even built a repertoire of a couple dozen of my favorite songs, but four or five years have how passed without it being taken from the case. We have four musical instruments in the house but our pursuit of them is, at best, lackadaisical. It seems we like music, and like the idea of playing music, but just don’t get around to it with much consistency.

Don did a little better, but I understand it to be only by a small degree. Our shiny piano of years ago eventually became scratched and worn, and some ivory went missing from the keys. It sat idle at the old Sycamore home until Don moved it to the Wisconsin farm he and Ellie bought in the mid-seventies. It stayed behind when they sold the farm a decade afterward. I ran across a good deal on a nice keyboard at a garage sale and sent it to him for Christmas some years afterward. Ellie and the kids bought a stand for it, but it mainly lingered by the wayside - like an abandoned orphan.

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