Red Light in Adult Piano Lessons
How a Chopin Nocturne Provided Clarity with an Alcoholic Parent
Red light: he had played the Chopin Nocturne in C-sharp minor by motor memory and feel of the keys alone.
At my adult piano lesson a few months later, while I stumbled through the Nocturne, I could not help but remember Stephen’s impressive performance. Eons passed while I fumbled for one of the opening chords. Although I did not look his way, I imagined Stephen, who sat at his desk next to the grand piano, cringing. My fingers stomped through the pianissimo interlude, and I decided my piano teacher must be judging me for having a harsh touch. When I plodded through one of the C-sharp minor scales at the end that should trill like a flute, I saw a motion out of the corner of my eye. I told myself that Stephen must have checked his watch, bemoaning that the calendar would flip into a New Year before I mastered this music.
Red light!
Like many adult children of alcoholic parents—in my case, my father was the alcoholic—I confuse people with one another. I cloak the people of my present with the troubled ghosts of my past. As a result, I struggle to see people for their real selves. This clarity that I receive from my adult piano lessons is one of the many ways in which my return to classical piano music has created for me a new way of being, a welcome change of life.
At my adult piano lesson, while I played the Chopin Nocturne for Stephen, I mistook him for my father, who ridiculed me for being too dramatic when I practiced the piano as a teenager. Often, he seemed ashamed of me, especially at piano recitals. But my father has not heard me play the piano for over 25 years. I ascribed to Stephen attitudes not so much from my present-day father as from the parts of Dad inside me that I have not yet managed to shed. Those thoughts were my own harsh judgments of myself.
The truth of the matter is that I am grateful that my piano teacher knows the music so well. I would like to absorb the Nocturne with his fluidity and keen touch. Perhaps someday I will play the music in a concert hall lit with a reddish light, so dark the keys will not be visible, my playing lit only with inner knowing.