Tea With Diane Hidy

Mark the plumber and I have bonded.

The night after it rained in the basement, he showed up with a brand new toilet. It was still pouring. He carried numerous heavy white boxes up the stairs and carefully unpacked them. He removed the old toilet and carried it out to the front doorstep. He installed the new toilet. It was beautiful. I heard him groan.

The new toilet was 1/4 inch too big and the bathroom door wouldn’t close. I felt genuine sympathy him. My landlord showed up and made him take it out and put the old one back in until we could get one that fit perfectly.

Yesterday was the day for the new toilet. I called Mark and told him that I had to teach one lesson from 4 - 5 p.m., so if he could show up at 5:30 p.m. that would be best. He said, “No problem.” There was a problem.

Yesterday at 2 p.m. a gasoline tanker spilled 6,000 gallons of gasoline on Highway 101, (his route to my new toilet). The gasoline literally ate through the roadway. They were forced to close the road until they could repave it. Being a quick thinker, Mark sent a friend. I was disappointed to find there is more than one Mr. Rooter. (Kind of like mall Santa Clauses.) I had hoped he was the only one: the real, authentic Mr. Rooter.

Mr. Rooter #2 showed up at 4:15 pm. I was in the middle of teaching Chris, a physician who specializes in HIV medicine. He was enjoying his new piece by my friend, Jane Bastien. Thank goodness he was a good sport about the plumbing.

Apparently not as skilled as Mark, Mr. Rooter #2 also brought his friends Mr. Rooter #3 and Mr. Rooter #4 to join in the fun. It was still raining. It felt a lot like Thing 1 and Thing 2 in The Cat in the Hat.

My landlord showed up. Sensing an opportunity for excitement, his mother took off her shoes and let herself in. (The one benefit of her speaking no English is that I could smile and say, “I have no idea why you’re here, but come on in!”)

Mr. Rooters #2, #3 and #4, my landlord and his mother were in the hallway barely outside my living room while I was trying to teach. They were chatting about toilets and the NFL draft. Yesterday I wasn’t so sure I liked football.

Hours later, Chris long gone, Mark showed up. He inspected the work done by the other Mr. Rooters and worked on the kitchen sink. I kept offering him food. He kept turning it down. Finally he said, “With these hands, I don’t touch food.” He had a point.

He’s coming back next week to install two new chrome faucet fixtures in the bathrooms.

I’ll feel like a new woman. I’m just hoping there aren’t any more gasoline spills.

Everybody has a friend who’s in a book club. If you want to start one, you can buy a book that will tell you how. Some books even come with “book club” guides to tell you how to lead a discussion on that particular book.

I think what makes book clubs so successful is that they give people a place to talk about something that is an otherwise solitary experience. Reading a book is a wonderful thing, but often when you finish it you want to say, “Didn’t you just love the part where Annie finally told John that she was leaving him?” and have someone say, “Yes. I thought she’d NEVER do it.”

Practicing the piano can be as lonely as reading a book. You play for your teacher, but that’s not always enough. It’s important to have a place to share that experience with other people who can understand and appreciate your hard work.

My adult students get together about 5 times a year. We always meet at 4 p.m. on Sunday afternoons (in honor of Vladimir Horowitz, the illustrious Russian pianist who would only play on Sundays at 4pm.)

I hold these gatherings at my student Dave’s beautiful Victorian apartment. He’s a retired psychiatrist with a gorgeous Steinway and a home full of art. Sometimes there’s a painting missing from his walls when it’s on loan to a museum. His home is peaceful and comfortable. Yesterday he filled his huge crystal vases with star gazer lilies and blue irises. It was a chilly, rainy day so he lit a fire: the perfect atmosphere for an afternoon of music.

Yesterday:

Judith, a college professor, played the Schumann piece, “Child Falling Asleep“. Though she began as a complete beginner just over ten years ago, she has developed into a beautiful pianist. She is at the top of her field professionally, but playing the piano for others is a challenge to her nerves. Yesterday she won the battle over her nerves and we got to hear her gorgeous playing.

Richard, a retired transportation engineer, played the Bach C Minor Prelude & Fugue from W.T.C. Book II and El Puerto by Albeniz. He has played the piano his whole life and taken it up with gusto in his retirement. He’s getting better all the time. Yesterday he played especially well. His next piece will be a Haydn sonata and he’s excited to get start on it.

Barbara, a grandmother in her late 70’s, played six pieces from Schumann’s “Davidbundler” absolutely gorgeously. She plays with such love and passion. She looks like a grandmother who would love to bake you some yummy cookies; she plays like a demon and is a most professional musician.

Dave, our host, played the first movement of the Bach E Minor English Suite. After many years of not-so-subtle hints from me, Dave finally worked on this piece consistently with the metronome. It was fabulous.

Sruti, a high school senior who drives more than an hour one way to study with me each Friday afternoon, (that’s parental dedication!) played the Mozart D Major Rondo and the Chopin F Major Waltz. They were both brand new pieces and they were sparkling and full of energy.

Finally Yung-Yee, a senior piano major from Stanford University, played the Bach B flat Partita and the Chopin Ocean Etude. Yung-Yee is a petite young woman who surprised everyone in the room with her incredibly virtuosity and passionate playing.

One of my favorite things about teaching piano to adults is the marvelous mixture of people who meet through music. I enjoy bringing together people who would otherwise probably never meet. I delight in the conversations that unfold among people of different ages, races, and professions.

And I bet they’d all agree with me; it’s better than a book club.

Meg came over last night for a quick cup of tea.

She came to pick up her daughter, Molly, one of my piano students. She’s also one of my daughter, Evie’s, favorite playmates.

The girls do not like their playdates to end. As a last ditch effort at getting Molly to stay longer, they went downstairs to the basement to play with the rubber band ball Molly had made.

“Mom, Mom, there’s a huge flood downstairs! You have to come RIGHT NOW!”

It had already been a very long day. I didn’t want a flood. I didn’t want a leak. It was raining hard outside. All things were possible.

It was raining in the basement. There was water everywhere. Books, papers and furniture were soaked. I ran back upstairs to try to figure out where the water was coming from. It was obvious.

There was a half an inch of water covering the guest bathroom floor. The toilet hose was leaking. A lot. I tried to turn it off. It wouldn’t budge. Molly tried. Evie tried. Meg tried. Well, maybe she didn’t but even if she did it wouldn’t have moved.

I called my landlord. He said to try turning off the hose. When I said that I’d already tried that, he said that he would call his father, (conveniently located next door to me) to come and take a look. Ten minutes later his aged father, Paul, showed up, wrench in hand and dutiful wife in tow. She speaks no English and is always worried about something. This was an excellent opportunity for her.

Paul got it to turn a bit but it was still dripping. There was much conversation about whether the previous, “Drip, Drip, Drip…” had now become “Drip……Drip…….Drip…..” or whether it was now “Drip……………Drip……………Drip……………”

I’d finally had enough of the Drip Conversation. I phoned my landlord and told him I was calling a plumber. At least I thought I was.

Meg grabbed the phone book. “Look, Di,” she said, “Plumbing, 24 Hr Emergency 7 Days - right here on the cover of the phone book!”

“Sounds like just what we need.” I dialed the number.

“Hello, I need a plumber right now!” I said.

“I’m sorry, the earliest we could get someone there is 9 a.m. tomorrow morning.”

“Excuse me? Your 24 hour service isn’t really 24 hour?”

“Yes, I’m sorry for the inconvenience. I can have someone there in the morning.”

“I’m sorry, too, but that won’t do. Can you recommend someone else?

“No. I guess you could look in the phone book.”

Hmm….that what was I just did.

Meg was undaunted. “Here’s another one, Di. Mr. Rooter says they will come 24 Hours A Day! 7 Days a Week!”

I called.

“We can have someone there between 9 and 10.”

“Tonight?”

“Of course.”

Whew.

And that is how Mark the plumber came to be at my house for two hours last night. He was kind and patient, both with me and my overly concerned landlord. They had a lovely conversation about the rarity of the toilet in question. He fixed the other toilet while he was here. Why not take care of all of it at once?

When he finally left at almost 11 p.m. I was exhausted. But my toilets both work and it’s not raining in the basement.

I taught a Master Class today for the Berkeley branch of the Music Teachers Association of California. I arrived early and got to sit in on their riveting business meeting. Just about what you’d expect from a group of piano teachers. I heard phrases like “the two errata in the new syllabus, required repertoire, scholarship auditions, facility rental, tuning fees.” There was much concern about filling out the online forms correctly for the Certificate of Merit auditions: California’s state-wide yearly auditions in which thousands of students participate each year. It is apparently crucial to not confuse the author with the composer: sometimes the author IS the composer, but sometimes the author IS NOT the composer. Even I was nearly confused and I’m an author, composer AND artist/performer so I should understand these things. A delightful sense of humor prevailed throughout the meeting. No one took themselves too seriously.

After the meeting, six different young people took their life in their hands and played for me in front of a large crowd of teachers, parents and other students. They played, of course, for everyone, but I was granted the honor of getting to talk to them about their playing. Everyone had their opinion but I got to say mine out loud.

I find Master Classes to be a challenge.

Here’s how a Master Class works:

Teachers select a student to play for me. I listen to them play. While they’re playing, I try to think of things to say which will help both the student and their teacher. I might talk about a particular problem and how to solve it from a teaching perspective. I have to be tactful, but real. It also helps to be entertaining enough to keep the entire audience engaged. Today the students played everything from a two piano arrangement of Mars: The Bringer of War by Gustav Holst, (Who knew there was a two piano arrangement of The Planets done by Holst himself? Not me!) to the Rachmaninoff Prelude in C Sharp Minor.

Today I felt pretty happy with the way things went. I didn’t make anyone cry.

I made a girl cry once in Reno.

I made a rather gentle suggestion about her pedaling and she melted into a puddle right there on the piano bench. I don’t know who felt worse: her or me.

Today my only possible faux-pas was going over my allotted 25 minutes with one particular boy who was the perfect master class student. He happened to be exactly the same age as my son (12 1/2, which made him kind interesting to me because he was so different from my son). He was playing the first movement of the Beethoven Sonata Opus 10 #1 in C Minor. This is the kind of piece that makes a great class piece because it’s familiar, teachers teach it frequently, and it’s full of interesting technical and musical problems. If the student is like this boy, talented and quick to adjust, it makes for an ideal teaching situation; the kind of situation that makes it easy to spend all your time with one student. Oops. I can’t do that. I have to be sure that everyone gets their fair share of time and attention.

I got a few stern looks from the woman who was keeping her eye on the clock for me. I had asked her to let me know when I’d spent 20 minutes with each student. I’ve learned that time is far too relative to rely on my own sense of time when I’m teaching in public. An unattractive piece played badly can seem to take forever while with this boy time literally flew.

Lots of old friends and current students came. Always nice to see familiar faces.

My long-time student Deborah took me to lunch at the yummiest French restaurant after the class. It was nice to just sit and enjoy the meal and not have to say insightful things about it. I’m glad I’m not a restaurant critic.

Still dark.

Still asleep.

Looked for my slippers. Knew they were on the bedroom floor.

Saw something. Thought it was the slippers. Tried to put them on.

It was my daughter’s portable CD player.

Yesterday my friend Meg came over. It had been a hard day.

My 8 year old daughter’s hamster died.

Evie found the hamster dead while I was watching football. Professional football. The NFL. Yup. Me. Concert pianist, writer of piano method books for children, recording artist, specialist in the music of Bach and Ravel; I was watching football. I wanted to be left alone because things were close in the third quarter. It was the playoff game between the Cowboys and the Giants and the lead kept changing. I didn’t care who won as long as it was a good game. I suggested she go check on her hamster and make sure it had food. Oops.I turned the game off immediately. I still don’t know who won. I’m not a bad mother.

Meg wanted to know why I like to watch football. I thought about it for a while. It’s because football is the complete antithesis of classical pianism. If I’m playing a concerto with an orchestra, we’re all on the same team: working together to create something beautiful. It’s about elegance and refinement and subtlety. There’s a conductor who lovingly keeps us together by making pretty patterns in the air with her hand. (Football has a coach yelling things from the sideline.) No one jumps on top of me. I’m never in physical danger. (Something my mother always rejoiced in – especially when I fell off the balance beam in junior high and knocked myself unconscious in my one and only gymnastics meet.)

Football? Football is ugly. If you have the ball, a guy can jump on top of you and hurl you to the ground. In fact, that sort of behavior is encouraged. If you get caught going beyond the realms of football decency, which most times you won’t, the worst thing that can happen is a 15 yard penalty: that’s for an extreme personal foul like “face mask”. Your team gets only a 15 yard penalty for you grabbing a guy’s face mask, spinning his head around and trying to make him resemble Nearly Headless Nick.

When I’m playing a concerto a lot of things can wrong. I can miss an entrance or come in early. I can rush and get ahead of the orchestra. I can play too loud or too soft. (Technically called “Balance problems” as in, “There were balance problems in the second movement.) I can play too passionately and get lost. People may hate my performance. The audience can even get up and leave. But I’ve never one been thrown to the ground in my line of work.

Now that I think about it, that’s not exactly true. I did. About two years ago I was in New York City rehearsing with five singer and dancers. One was the fabulous Bebe Neuwirth. We were in a small underground rehearsal space whose walls were covered with mirrors. There was a scene in the play we were rehearsing, Here Lies Jenny, that involved two guys boxing in a bar. One held a padded circle while the other guy hit it repeatedly. I was playing music with heavy beats that coincided with the punches. It was the first day of rehearsals and we were all a little excited. The first time the boxer boxed he got too excited. There was a chain reaction. He boxed. The guy with the padded disc backed up too far with each punch. The studly dancer landed on top of me, the piano bench leg cracked in half, and I fell off and landed on the floor with said studly dancer squarely on top of me. It could have been worse.

No referees gave out a penalty. My head was still attached. The leg on the piano bench was broken for good. We all picked ourselves up, dusted ourselves off and started all over again. Sometimes, piano playing can be just a teeny, tiny bit dangerous. But it doesn’t even come close to football.

I love to watch those guys playing rough. It’s the perfect antidote for classical piano playing.