My father had a cousin named Roweena who could also play by ear. People said she wasn’t quite as good as Mary but all I knew was that Roweena seemed to carry music inside her and the piano let it out so others could hear it too. It seemed to me that piano playing was something you either did automatically or not at all. I'd never met anyone who had to practice.
In fourth grade, I was thrilled when my school offered free piano lessons. This wasn’t a regular program, just something a retired teacher offered on her own. Free was a price my parents could afford so they signed up and bought me an old upright Baldwin for $15 which, on a miner’s wages in 1964, wasn’t that cheap.
The Baldwin was one of the better models when it was new. Its sounding board had fancy hand-carved scrollwork along with the later addition of three bullet holes. The owner told us they were added when he tried to shoot his wife. Luckily, the bullets missed the hammers and strings so the piano sounded fine. As a bonus, he included an old piano stool coated in thick layers of white lead paint. The legs ended in eagle talons gripping clear glass balls. My parents didn’t ask what happened to the wife.
My father and a few relatives rescued the piano with a pickup truck and into the basement of our house. My mother had plans for the basement. Someday it was going to be a fabulous 1960’s Family Circle rumpus room. At the time, though, it was a cold cement hole with only an asbestos-wrapped furnace and two galvanized washtubs with a clothesline hanging in between.
Though my parents had little to spend on repairs, this once grand instrument inspired them to hire Butte’s best piano tuner, Frankie Heffern, to restore its sound. For two days with me watching for most of the time, Frankie refurbished every part that mattered. When it was ready, he finished up by sitting down at the keys and playing for an hour straight. Frankie was blind from birth and played by ear. Like my aunt, the music inside him escaped through the piano.
Maybe because he never got the chance to know what he was missing, Frankie was not bitter about his blindness. He simply did what he needed to do and every once in a while he asked someone to back him up on a detail. I hung around as he worked. He had a physical memory of space that was wonderful to watch. He knew when someone entered a room and, if they had already been introduced, he could recognize them. He didn’t need eyes to see.
While he ate lunch he would talk about how he was raised. His parents never treated him differently than their other children. They each had certain skills and they were all expected to make the most of them. They were all expected to pay their own way through life.
One of his favorite things to do when he was my age was horseback riding. Frankie’s horse was trained to follow the lead of an older horse that his brother would ride. He said they would ride like the wind. He loved the speed. He wasn’t afraid of being out of control.
When Frankie was finished, I sat down at the keys, somewhat expecting to have music pour out of my hands but it didn’t. Sensing my disappointment, he said, “Just keep at it. Most people need to practice some. It’ll be worth in the long run. I promise.”
With the bullet-ridden Baldwin in working order, I started my piano lessons in the middle of a Montana winter. The usual temperature in my basement practice room was just a few degrees above freezing. The keys developed arthritis. A few of the most common notes, like middle C, tended to stick in the down position until manually lifted back up. My fingering began to include quick upward nudges with my thumb, an adaptation that worked its way into all my playing whether or not it was necessary. This went unnoticed by my elderly volunteer instructor. Simply staying awake through an entire lesson demanded her full attention.
With years of keyboard exercises, my hands eventually took over from my brain and I experienced a hint of being graced with a natural conduit. Though I have no desire to play for others, I've seldom been without a piano because its chords are attached to my heart.
