My piano role

Back in the day, when I was not in as much control of my life as I would like to be now, I had to take piano lessons. I did not want to take piano lessons. My parents often admonished me with a "some day you'll thank us for these piano lessons." That day never came, at least not on any specific day that I can remember as having marked the time I thanked them for forcing me to study the piano.

Of course, you should never expect gratitude from a younger generation, simply because chronologically they're not in a position to appreciate your wisdom in these matters. Had I become a concert pianist, or even a competent pianist, undoubtedly I would have told anyone who listened that I owed it all to the generosity of my parents, who paid for the many hundreds of hours of instruction, and tolerated the thousands of hours of practice.

I quit taking piano from the first instructor, a tyrant who intimidated me at every misstep, and insisted that I did not practice sufficiently. Of course, he was right. I practiced out of fear, and gave new meaning to the musical term, tremolo.

The next and final teacher lived in the neighborhood, offering lessons to many who could otherwise not have afforded them. She might have succeeded in inspiring me to a more musical life, had it not been for the fact that I had been aesthetically traumatized by the first teacher, to the point where only a lobotomy would have allowed me to approach the instrument with any sense of calm.

Our next-door neighbour who moved in while I was still approaching the teen years, was, in fact, an accomplished classical pianist who taught many higher-achieving students. Her entire diningroom was taken up with a baby grand piano. Her husband, an Armenian rug merchant, was himself no musician, but spent hours listening from the kitchen while drinking his tea, in rapt adoration of his spouse's and her students' musical achievements. A professional photographer in his native country, he would retreat to the basement darkroom to develop his black and white photos of flowers and faces, but since it was directly under the piano, I suspect that much of what he did down there was listen undisturbed to the heavenly concerts above.

Although I did not blossom as a pianist, I retained a "musical ear" which has permitted me to play exclusively by it, in any of three common, uncomplicated keys, C, G and F, on a variety of instruments. That, plus a few lessons, allowed me to be a third clarinettist in our high school cadet corps band, thereby saving me from having to carry a gun. The clarinet was much lighter.

I like to think I didn't totally waste my parents' money even as I dashed their hopes, because I appreciate music, especially of the baroque classical genre. Perhaps the struggle with the intractable piano has led to a greater appreciation of those who master it (including my own brother's abilities: he plays both from notes and/or by ear, in a variety of styles, and in any key required, and if the key is unsuitable, he transposes, even if he's playing by sightreading a piece for the first time!)

The advent of Internet radio with stations like Otto's Baroque on 1.FM and many others from around the world is an enormous gift to my generation. Perhaps in the future the technology will make it possible to travel back in time to watch the young Mozart composing his themes on the harpsichord at the age of three. For now, I am seriously grateful for the musical education I was given, for by failing as a performer, I have had the time to become a better listener.

How Frank Martin killed my career

Back in Jurassic time "when I was single and life was fun" (a witty clause I owe to Paul Simon), I wanted to be a disk jockey. I phoned CHUM-FM for an audition in Toronto because they were a classical station at the time. In my youthful snobbery, I thought that any other kind of music was detrimental to human development. I also thought that I had the precision of diction and clarity of tone that would fit right in with their announcers' style.

They gave me a time and place for an audition. I arrived at the studio well in advance, and was ushered into a dingy, yellow room where Sjef Frenken was currently on air. He ultimately became a member of the CRTC, the regulatory body in Canada that governs the use of FM frequencies, but at the time was an erudite-sounding, mellow-voiced announcer, sitting across the table from me in an acoustically-isolated studio with a very large microphone and a very obvious clock on the wall.

I sat, quieter than a crypt, fearing to scratch my nose in case the act was broadcast to the world. He turned down the monitor volume and handed me a script to read while the turntable in the control room was finishing a movement of Mozart's Clarinet Concerto.

I cleared my throat and commenced to read a paragraph which seemed to be a news item out of Montreal that I had heard not too long before. My eyes caught the intentional repetition of simple words, like "the the" in the typescript, and I successfully elided them.

Sjef pointed out another paragraph, gave me a moment to scan it, and then said, "Read it!" It made no sense. It seemed to be a news item that had been garbled in transmission. I immediately faced an internal dilemma: did a news announcer read exactly what was in front of him or did he try to make sense of it? I chose the latter, and to this day cannot say whether that was the right choice.

At that point, on cue from the control room, Sjef punched up his microphone and offered a segue into the next track that would have left me gasping in admiration had it not been for my being transfixed by the ON AIR sign on the wall and feeling a stuporous obligation to be silent.

The music commenced. He moved his mic aside once more and handed me a third sheet with a playlist on it. I was to introduce these items as though they were cued up in the control room.

In my best, most mature 20-year old voice, I mellowed my way through several well-known composers. "Volfgahng Ahmohdayoos Mote-zart", I intoned, and brought all my private-school modern languages savvy to bear upon "Say-zar Frahnk".

But then it happened. Luck forsook me as I announced that the next selection was the "Ode a la musique by Frank Martin".

You see, I had an uncle with the same last name and a cousin with the first but unfortunately neither man was Swiss in origin. How could I know that the composer should have sounded something like "frahnk mahr-TAN"?

Thus ended my career in radio. And a good thing, too. CHUM-FM went through a sea-change over the next few years. Had I made the cut, I would have ended up spinning the very kind of tinnitus-inducing ruckus that I so seriously despised.