“Sounds
good, Mollie.” I can say that in all honesty because I’m the father of a girl
who is learning to play the piano.
Have you
ever been lectured by a seven year old? It’s a humbling experience. But I can
take it, if she keeps playing the piano.
Danny and
I used to tease my sisters when they would play. We had a cat named Lionel who would occasionally walk
across the piano keys, making a ragged sound, and we would yell at the cat to
get off. So when my sisters would practice the piano, we would yell “Lionel!”
They didn’t appreciate it. Neither did the cat.
OK, so it’s
not a real piano. We’re still looking for one of those. It’s an electronic
keyboard, the kind that can make all kinds of fake noises. Right now she is
switching from the sound of a Star Wars handgun to something you might hear in
the background of a Stephen King movie.
Mozart
she ain’t. But she’s already way past me in her piano-lesson knowledge. She
just proved that to me. I asked her which songs she liked the best.
“I have
two favorite ones. I don’t know which one I like the best. I like The Butterfly and Bluebells of Scotland.”
Why? “For
one thing, this one has two of these ones that go together. Two and five and
one, you push them together and four and two, you push them together.”
She made
a chord to show me what she meant. “Five one, four two,” she sang. “Two of them
go together, like that. You get it now? It’s like that three and one, except
that it’s five and one and four and two.”
 |
| Practicing Christmas songs. |
The other night I went to get milk,
and I heard Mollie practicing her songs. The notes filtered down from her
bedroom window in the evening like the singing of an oriole. When I got home—half an hour later, she was still playing. I looked up and
smiled. It was even better than a bird song.
Cindy works
with Mollie on her lessons. One evening she put me in charge. “Make sure she
bends her fingers like this,” Cindy said, threatening me with a claw-like hand. “And she should be
hitting the half note for two counts.” She started to go on, but my eyes had
glazed over, so she didn’t bother.
I did sit
on her bed and watch and listen and say nice things. I guess that’s important
too.
Lately,
Mollie has been having trouble with Bluebells of Scotland, so a grown-up friend
stopped over on Sunday evening and spent half an hour with her on it.
“She
pointed to the notes and then I did it,” Mollie told me. She demonstrated it
for me. It sounded hard, but she played it well. Like I said at the start, it
sounds good to me.
Friends
like that, and Mollie’s good teacher, make me think that my daughter will stick
with the piano. She’s been at it for a whole six weeks.
Most of
my brothers and sisters can play the piano, and I envy that. I took lessons
from my sister Mary Ellen for about two days when I was a kid, but it didn’t
interest me. Maybe that’s because my sister was teaching me.
 |
| David always was making music. Not 'knowing' how didn't stop him from playing the organ at the old Brownsville school. He did just fine. |
(We now
have a cat named Emma, and if I ever hear Noah yell her name while Mollie is
practicing, he’ll be in his room for a week.)
Now I
wish I had practiced more and smarted off less. Then I could teach Mollie a few
things, instead of the other way around.
I wonder
where she will end up with the piano. Maybe she’ll play like Joy Novak, or Birdie
Storebo, two people who can play just about any song by ear. I’d like that.
These two people live up to their names. How much joy has Joy brought with her
piano playing? And if Birdie doesn’t sound like a birdie when she plays, no one
does.
Maybe she’ll
play like her teacher, Pepper, who Mollie loves because she smiles and laughs
and she’s cute. I’d like that too.
Or maybe
Mollie will sit down in front of a class of first graders and play “The
Marvelous Toy” and a million other songs, like Jeannie Mach. I’d like that very
much.
Even if
she doesn’t reach such piano pinnacles, I’ll be happy. She just brought me a
picture of two axes, done like a shield of arms in colored marker. It is signed
“I love you Dad, love Mollie.” On the other side of the paper are the words and
music of one of her first songs. It’s my favorite, because it is called “Baseball
Days,” and I am a baseball fan, and she knows it. It goes like this: “Come on boys, join the fun, baseball days have begun.”
I’d play
it for you on the piano if I could, but I can’t. Guess I’ll just ask Mollie.
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