Music and Being Politically Incorrect

Playing the piano was my way of escaping when I was a child.  The music belonged to me and talked to me like nothing else could. Mom played everything  from Chopin Etudes to 12th Street Rag and did it well. Her influence made me beg for lessons when I was five. I learned to read music about the same time I learned to read words. I didn't get off the bench so to speak until I was a sophomore in high school. Did I neglect to mention I was a slow learner?

Big Brother Hal--the first Denton
at the piano in 1949.

Reading music was as easy as the written word, but rhythm was my downfall. When Mom would ask me how many beats to a measure and how many beats a quarter note would get, you might as well have asked me to explain the theory of relativity. I just didn't get it and therefore, I didn't keep time very well. I also couldn't play by ear. Those who have the ability don't realize what a blessing it is.

My first public piano recital
with my cousin Bill.

Mom gave me lessons at home and also at school where she taught private lessons. Her rule was to not take a student until they were in the third grade.  In fifth grade, she talked her piano teacher at Martin College in Pulaski, TN into taking me on as a student. 

My first recital in Pulaski--I'm the dark one.

The origin of my costume.

Mrs. Booth didn't start teaching students until seventh grade, but since I was a "grandchild" she made an exception. She knew my mom would make me tow the mark.

Mrs. Booth was the wife of one of Pulaski's physicians and taught piano at the college. During World War II she was a mentor to my mom, and they were friends from that time forward. At my first lesson, Mrs. Booth introduced me to Bach Two Part Inventions. Up until that time, I thought an invention was what made Thomas Edison and Eli Whitney famous. In case you haven't had the pleasure, the right hand and left hand play two separate parts and chords are non-existent. In time, I figured them out, but I couldn't get any speed going. There's never been anything nimble about me, and that includes my fingers.

The first spring recital--second from left.

Mrs. Booth conducted two recitals a year for her junior high students. The first was the Christmas recital and students dressed in the costume of the composer's country.  I was dressed in black face and pinafore, a 5th grader in a sea of 7th and 8th graders, and doing it in the birthplace of the Ku Klux Klan. As a 5th grader, I was more intimidated by the older kids than how I was dressed.

The second Christmas recital--I played a
Hungarian Rhapsody thank goodness! Some
other lucky kid got to go black face.

At my house people were treated with respect regardless of their color. As a kid I had heard on the national news about racial rumblings in the south, but those were far away and didn't concern my small world. All the African American people I knew were kind and pleasant. It would have never occurred to me that playing a part in a piano recital would be disrespectful. It would be a few years down the road before playing Al Jolsen would be deemed politically incorrect. Back then, I didn't know what the Ku Klux Klan was. When I was older and heard about what they did, I feared them much more than any person of color. Contrary to what  some might think, terrorism wasn't invented by  al-Qaeda; it's hard for me to imagine subjecting our own citizens to such violence.

My last recital.

These performances in Pulaski provided even more new experiences...playing in an auditorium of a college and on a grand piano. The stage seemed huge and the piano even more imposing. We took lessons on a baby grand, and even though I thought the shiny black Steinway was gorgeous, it was really big!  Having survived the Christmas recital dressed as as pickaninny, the spring recital wasn't so tough. As usual, Mom made me a new dress, and I took my turn playing the memorized piece.  

In 9th grade my nerves got the best of me at recital time. The knees started knocking and I couldn't make them stop.  I decided to break it to Mom that I was at the end of my piano rope. Surprisingly she said o.k. Practicing was one of my favorite times. I may not have particularly like the current pieces I was preparing, but as soon as I got those done, I could play the things I wanted like big band tunes from the 1940's or some of the easier melodies of Edward Grieg or Franz Listz.

When I began this blog, music was one of the topics that came to me first. For a brief time I thought I had lost the photos and programs, but to my delight, they were in a scrap book that had gotten damp, and the pages stuck together.

Music remains the love of my life even though I am an observer now and not a participant. It's been my special friend since the days of paper dolls and mud pies and will continue to be as long as I breathe.