Perfect Pitch
I can already tell this is going to be a long one. Sorry about that.
When I was about 7 or 8 years old, I had been taking piano lessons for about 3 years, and my mom took me to see a movie about Franz Liszt starring Cornell Wilde called "A Song To Remember." Terrible movie. Anyway, later at home, I remarked to my mom that the lady in the movie sure held that high B-flat for a long time. She asked me how I knew it was a B-flat. Whaddaya mean how'd I know it was a B-flat? That was like asking me how I knew my shirt was blue. So mom ran to the piano in the other room and played some notes and some chords and asked me what they were, and I told her. She asked me to sing some notes, and I did. Shnooky, she said, you have perfect pitch. I never heard of perfect pitch. I honestly didn't know that not everyone could hear pitch the way I did. Apparently I was born with it.
From that day forward, my fate was sealed. When I was a kid, the last thing I wanted to be was different from everyone else. I already hated the piano because I got home from school at about 3:30 and dinner was always at 5:00 sharp, and I had to practice the piano immediately after school. My friends had already been out playing for half an hour or 45 minutes before I could go out, and I always felt left out. None of my neighborhood friends were musicians. Somewhere along the line after I really understood what this perfect pitch thing implied, I decided that okay, I'll do this music thing. I'll take the piano lessons. I'll sing in every school choir and church choir. I'll play in the band and the orchestra. But I'll put forth the minimal amount of effort required. And I'll show zero enthusiasm. You can make me take lessons, but you can't make me like it. And whenever I wanted to do something or go somewhere that I thought everyone else was allowed to do and my parents didn't let me, I always figured it was because I was Music Boy, because that was the only thing I could see that made me different from everyone else. More reason to hate being Music Boy.
Our school system had a good music program with free summer instrumental lessons, so when the summer after fourth grade came around, it was decided that Shnooky would learn THE VIOLIN. THE VIOLIN. So while my friends were riding bikes and squirting each other with hoses, I took VIOLIN LESSONS along with piano lessons. Later, I took clarinet lessons and finally saxophone lessons. Oh yeah. I also learned to play the bassoon. I played in all the school orchestras and all the school bands. I went to district band and state band. I sang in all the choirs. I went to district choir and state choir. And I put forth an absolute minimum amount of effort, because I didn't like being Music Boy. There was no payoff for me. I never discovered music on my own. It was thrust upon me. I didn't ask for it. I didn't get off on it. And I had this damn perfect pitch.
Here's the thing. When I was in elementary school and the teacher would tell us to write about what we wanted to be when we grew up, other kids would say I wanna be a fireman or I wanna be a policeman or I wanna be a cowboy or I wanna be a veterinarian. I always said, "Well, I'll probably be a public school music teacher/band director/choir director and be a church organist/choir director and piano teacher." Because that was all I knew. That's what you did when you were into music and grew up where I did. I had it all figured out by about third grade. And even that young, I probably realized that I would never have the kind of talent for anything else in life that I had for music, like it or not. So I knew all along that my fate in life was to do this thing I hated.
All along, I've known people who bought the whole music package. They loved music and everything about it. It brought them joy and happiness and fulfillment. They loved to sing and play and talk about singing and playing. When I played rock and roll, I knew people who lived every minute for their music, listened to music when they weren't playing it or writing it, surrounded themselves with music. I never bought the whole package. I always resisted it. I always wanted to do other stuff, try other things, be good at something I wasn't born with, something at which I had to put forth more than a minimal effort. I got pretty damn good at basketball, and there was a time I would have traded all of my musical talent to be 6' 8" and be known as a basketball player and not as Music Boy.
I hear pitch everywhere. I can walk into a bathroom and speak a few words and hear what the resonant frequency of the room is and hum it until the walls shake. I used to do that in my high school auditorium until they told me to cut it out. I used to be able to tell how fast my dad was driving over the Market Street Bridge by the pitch of the tires against the metal roadway grating. I know the key of every song I hear on the radio, and I know what every note is that they're singing. You can play a random cluster of notes on a piano that's in tune, and I can tell you what every note is. I can tell you which string on your guitar is out of tune. I can tell you what notes your doorbell plays.
To be successful in the music business, I've always felt that you need three things: love, luck, and talent, in that order. You have to buy the whole package. You have to love what you're doing so much that you'd do it all day for free. You also need to have a bit of luck and/or connections, whether it's your brother-in-law who works at Universal or Bruce Springsteen was in your first rock and roll band or something like that. Sometimes the love can determine the luck. Third on the list is talent. I've always had talent to spare, but I never had the love, and my connections and luck have always been few and far between.
So here I am with a gift I never asked for. It's like I was given an amazing wood shop at the age of 4 with the most modern and sophisticated woodworking tools imaginable, and I don't like carpentry. Damn perfect pitch.
When I was about 7 or 8 years old, I had been taking piano lessons for about 3 years, and my mom took me to see a movie about Franz Liszt starring Cornell Wilde called "A Song To Remember." Terrible movie. Anyway, later at home, I remarked to my mom that the lady in the movie sure held that high B-flat for a long time. She asked me how I knew it was a B-flat. Whaddaya mean how'd I know it was a B-flat? That was like asking me how I knew my shirt was blue. So mom ran to the piano in the other room and played some notes and some chords and asked me what they were, and I told her. She asked me to sing some notes, and I did. Shnooky, she said, you have perfect pitch. I never heard of perfect pitch. I honestly didn't know that not everyone could hear pitch the way I did. Apparently I was born with it.
From that day forward, my fate was sealed. When I was a kid, the last thing I wanted to be was different from everyone else. I already hated the piano because I got home from school at about 3:30 and dinner was always at 5:00 sharp, and I had to practice the piano immediately after school. My friends had already been out playing for half an hour or 45 minutes before I could go out, and I always felt left out. None of my neighborhood friends were musicians. Somewhere along the line after I really understood what this perfect pitch thing implied, I decided that okay, I'll do this music thing. I'll take the piano lessons. I'll sing in every school choir and church choir. I'll play in the band and the orchestra. But I'll put forth the minimal amount of effort required. And I'll show zero enthusiasm. You can make me take lessons, but you can't make me like it. And whenever I wanted to do something or go somewhere that I thought everyone else was allowed to do and my parents didn't let me, I always figured it was because I was Music Boy, because that was the only thing I could see that made me different from everyone else. More reason to hate being Music Boy.
Our school system had a good music program with free summer instrumental lessons, so when the summer after fourth grade came around, it was decided that Shnooky would learn THE VIOLIN. THE VIOLIN. So while my friends were riding bikes and squirting each other with hoses, I took VIOLIN LESSONS along with piano lessons. Later, I took clarinet lessons and finally saxophone lessons. Oh yeah. I also learned to play the bassoon. I played in all the school orchestras and all the school bands. I went to district band and state band. I sang in all the choirs. I went to district choir and state choir. And I put forth an absolute minimum amount of effort, because I didn't like being Music Boy. There was no payoff for me. I never discovered music on my own. It was thrust upon me. I didn't ask for it. I didn't get off on it. And I had this damn perfect pitch.
Here's the thing. When I was in elementary school and the teacher would tell us to write about what we wanted to be when we grew up, other kids would say I wanna be a fireman or I wanna be a policeman or I wanna be a cowboy or I wanna be a veterinarian. I always said, "Well, I'll probably be a public school music teacher/band director/choir director and be a church organist/choir director and piano teacher." Because that was all I knew. That's what you did when you were into music and grew up where I did. I had it all figured out by about third grade. And even that young, I probably realized that I would never have the kind of talent for anything else in life that I had for music, like it or not. So I knew all along that my fate in life was to do this thing I hated.
All along, I've known people who bought the whole music package. They loved music and everything about it. It brought them joy and happiness and fulfillment. They loved to sing and play and talk about singing and playing. When I played rock and roll, I knew people who lived every minute for their music, listened to music when they weren't playing it or writing it, surrounded themselves with music. I never bought the whole package. I always resisted it. I always wanted to do other stuff, try other things, be good at something I wasn't born with, something at which I had to put forth more than a minimal effort. I got pretty damn good at basketball, and there was a time I would have traded all of my musical talent to be 6' 8" and be known as a basketball player and not as Music Boy.
I hear pitch everywhere. I can walk into a bathroom and speak a few words and hear what the resonant frequency of the room is and hum it until the walls shake. I used to do that in my high school auditorium until they told me to cut it out. I used to be able to tell how fast my dad was driving over the Market Street Bridge by the pitch of the tires against the metal roadway grating. I know the key of every song I hear on the radio, and I know what every note is that they're singing. You can play a random cluster of notes on a piano that's in tune, and I can tell you what every note is. I can tell you which string on your guitar is out of tune. I can tell you what notes your doorbell plays.
To be successful in the music business, I've always felt that you need three things: love, luck, and talent, in that order. You have to buy the whole package. You have to love what you're doing so much that you'd do it all day for free. You also need to have a bit of luck and/or connections, whether it's your brother-in-law who works at Universal or Bruce Springsteen was in your first rock and roll band or something like that. Sometimes the love can determine the luck. Third on the list is talent. I've always had talent to spare, but I never had the love, and my connections and luck have always been few and far between.
So here I am with a gift I never asked for. It's like I was given an amazing wood shop at the age of 4 with the most modern and sophisticated woodworking tools imaginable, and I don't like carpentry. Damn perfect pitch.
posted by Shnookylangston at 8:16 PM
2 Comments:
Thanks for reading and commenting, Catie. This post was pretty harsh, and after I went back and re-read it, I thought I may have lost all 3 of my regular readers with this one. Yeah, those woodwinds.......the flutes are always sharp, and the clarinets are always, well, sharp and flat.
Ah, Gershwin. Now there's a guy who bought the whole package. He probably would have survived his brain tumor if his brother Ira's wife hadn't been so jealous of all the attention George got and Ira didn't get. When George was getting sick, Ira's wife basically told everyone, "Oh, he's just trying to get attention. He's not really sick."
Ahh, Caoimhghin, those first two paragraph resounded with me (pardon the pun). As I've previously mentioned to you, I started playing the piano at the age of 5. I hated it.
At first I was bribed into it because my friends were taking it and I got to play with them after my lesson. As I grew up it was mandated in my house that I practice for 30 minutes each day. This caused many arguements throughout my childhood and ultimately turned me into a chronic liar until approx age 12.
My Grandfather in England (who attended the Royal Academy of Music in London, prior to WWII) used to tell me the same thing. He'd look outside and see all of his friends playing while his piano teacher was caning him across the hands when he would make a mistake! I certainly am glad I didn't get physically beaten when I made a mistake or Debussy would have sent me to the hospital.
My freshman year in high school I finally pushed the issue with my parents. I hated playing the piano and dredded every minute of it and I simply refused to play anymore.
It really is a strange thing how when something you love is forced upon you, you discontinue your love afair for it. After one year sans piano I really started to miss it. I tried to teach myself songs but found myself on a plateau. It was time to tuck my tail between my legs (I do keep meaning to get that removed) and ask my parents to pay for piano lessons again.
I loved it. I don't think I've ever had actual musical talent (I would kill for perfect pitch) but rather I have practiced enough in my life to become proficient... perhaps even pretty good. Before high school grad'geation I went on to earn a ranking of First Place in the National Piano Guild (many hundreds of people can share this distinction... it is a rating if you're not familiar with it although I suspect you are). For a guy like me who has no real musical ability, I was pretty proud.
I enjoy playing. It is something I can do that others cannot. But I do wish I could learn how to improvise or play jazz piano... but I can't seem to. I have the love, but not the talent, and that is something I'm envious of you for.
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