In Which I Attempt to Outwit my Piano Teacher (But Failing that, I Attempt to Change my Schedule, with Very Mixed Results)

My piano teacher is a very gifted individual when it comes to all things piano. He is without doubt one of the best piano teachers I’ve ever had; his early brilliance as a composer was such that he was offered a professorship at a college at age 18 (not a student scholarship, a teaching gig, mind you). He was born and lived for most of his life behind the Iron Curtain, and he came to the United States 12 years ago, speaking no English at all. Since then, he has learned English, has a thriving teaching practice, and composes music constantly. I would have to assume, then (at least in my saner, less harpy moments) that he of all people would certainly have a clear awareness of life’s challenges and difficulties.

Now that we have clarified what sort of (excellent) musician he is, let us now begin to dissect me as seen through the eyes of Dr. Pianoprofessor. It goes something like this: “Cara” (spoken with that inimitable Eastern European accent), “I am getting the impression that anything that is not fun for you in your life, you do not do!” Huh? Entirely unreasonable. Don’t you think? For some reason he felt that I could have found more time to practice my chord progressions than the 5 minutes I was able to allot the previous week. Does he not realize the demands of working full-time, life itself, a husband, the dog, and several freelance projects that have deadlines? Is he not aware of the fact that life is always coming up with unexpected ways to take my time away from me? Does he not understand the swirling vortex of time-waste that is otherwise referred to as housework? And that even when my best efforts are made to houseclean, does he not realize that the bugs and roaches in my house are belching and singing my name in drunken, delighted harmonies as they revel in how many weeks it’s been since I’ve adequately cleaned the floors? That the more diligently I attempt to organize my time and achieve my goals, the more virulently Time attempts to snatch these very things away from me? Really, Dr. Pianoprofessor lacks that deeply desirable quality known as mercy…he clearly just doesn’t understand.

Next comes this gem: “Cara, I think you practice this song only one time this morning before you see me.” Whhhhhhaaaaat? Ridiculous. I practiced this particular song 4 times this week. Really. I should think he would be a better judge of character. (And none of those 4 times was this morning! Really….)

“I cannot believe that you did not find time in your own home to practice this song this week.” Has he never gotten a new haircut that took him over a week to figure out how to style? Does he not realize that after being a girl in ponytails my whole life, my creeping age has now forced me to get a hairstyle that I have to fix every morning? Does he not realize what a loss of time this involves for this formerly-3-minute-hair girl? Has he ever had this now-requiring-styling haircut coincide with other important life issues (besides work) that also take time? Like, say, washing dishes, doing laundry, assisting my youngest brother long-distance with his term papers, hosting out-of-town guests, taking care of last-minute needs that my students have outside of their regular teaching hours, attending out-of-town conferences, endless household paperwork, taking classes, etc? Reeeeaaalllly…I am going to lose some patience with him here, or at least some respect for his (voluminous) intelligence. Or perception. Or whatever it is that is causing him to see me in this very objective light as opposed to the soft-pink subjectivity I’d be so much more fond of.

But perhaps the crowning blow was this jewel: “Please, please, take the candy! If it can get you to practice this week, please, yes, yes!” No, I am not kidding: I was offered candy last week by Dr. Pianoprofessor in order to get my butt in gear and practice (he explained to me that he “brings candy for the children” to “help them practice.” I guess it should surprise no one at this point that I was one of those children who was offered the candy.)

Properly chastened, I decided to take a look at this whole practice situation (not because of my professor, because that would be to acknowledge that he is indeed right, and I simply cannot give him that satisfaction at this time). So we will simply say that I am examining my schedule to see if my stated priorities are matching up to my actual ones as revealed by my daily calendar.

Of course, they are not. At all.

I always wonder how this ends up happening to me. I decide something is important to me, and I guess it’s easy for me to then assume that this new priority (or re-evaluated old one) will just naturally help itself to a correspondingly important role in my calendar and energies with no effort on my part. Dream on…

I have now reached this realization in my life: anything that I add to my life requires a corresponding thing to be removed from my life. Period. Oh, I don’t like this information at all, and apparently I quite frequently live in denial about it. Witness the “piano lessons are important to me” routine, and then my practice time getting taken over by one thing after another for weeks in a row (by important things, yes, but also by the quite-trivial which seemed so important, rushed, desperate, and necessary at the time).

Now, about this prioritizing business: I find that as I’m getting older and busier, I have to conduct this evaluation of how I spend my time more and more often. It seems that the famous and well-hated “tyranny of the urgent” so quickly drowns out my deeper values and priorities. The weird thing is that it happens so quietly that my daily priorities have already become all wacked out before I even notice that once again, the takeover has occurred.

So, as I already mentioned, I sat down and took a hard look at my schedule. And I found that the only way to guarantee that I get adequate practice time in the future is to get up an hour earlier in order to fit it in. It is the only time of day where I can guarantee that I won’t be interrupted, or that something won’t change (beyond my control) with my teaching schedule and life obligations.

So this is how I came to be pounding out Hanon’s 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th exercises at an ungodly-early hour on a number of mornings this week. My dear in-laws are suffering the brunt of this new plan (they’re the ones with a piano in their front living room, suffering through what Dr. Pianoprofessor refers to as my “military interpretation” of every song I am assigned). My gracious mom-in-law assures me that she is used to musical practice, so “it’s no problem”, but she did ask me very brightly today if I would soon be given a piece to play that I would get to have a chance to perfect. My dear readers, I will let you be the judge of what aural monstrosities (through which my MIL has valiantly kept a stiff upper lip) might have caused this fine woman to ask such a question. And I am personally suspicious that my father-in-law will soon be developing a nervous twitch if he hears yet one more attempt at “Come Back to Sorrento” in which I forget the B-flat again and play the left hand a consistent half-measure behind the right hand throughout the entire piece. But for now, he is holding strong; any prayers which you readers may wish to offer on my parents-in-laws’ behalf would be entirely appropriate. (In fact, let us engage in a respectful moment of silence now. Long, long silence. Thank you.)

And now for the good news: this week Dr. Pianoprofessor was pleased enough with my improved performance that he whipped out a sheet of paper with recital information: now that I’m practicing, I can be part of his student recital if I wish (well, on the other hand, this could indeed be quite bad news for all those in attendance at this recital. But I digress.)

The bad news? At my most recent lesson, I was offered the candy yet again. Apparently Dr. Pianoprofessor is very pleased with my improving dedication to practicing (ie, getting a fire under my butt, but as this term was apparently not part of his English instruction up until now, I have semi-retired this phrase for the moment. No, please do not ask.) Dr. Pianoprofessor is quite gleeful that his candy-based technique has worked so swimmingly well with me; in fact, he even asked what kind of candy I would prefer in the future!

All in all, I do have to thank Dr. Pianoprofessor for causing me to re-evaluate my priorities and my time. Although he may not realize it, he was a catalyst to help me once again take action on the disparity between my values and my day-to-day life.

And to think that all of this occurred because of a little Sour Apple candy sucker….now that’s some dang good candy!