On a hot June day in 2015, I retired after 34 years of teaching high school. I packed up my classroom, went home and tossed my briefcase in the attic. Then, I drove to meet my new piano teacher, Mark.
I had worked for more than three decades as a busy English teacher with an endless stream of papers to mark and precious little time to experiment or learn new skills. Now, I was determined to make up for all I had been missing. I wanted to finally master the piano and learn how to make music.
I’d first started playing the piano at age eight. Four years later I ditched it to take on a paper delivery job, but I always felt that music should be part of my life and that, one day, I’d get back to it. I didn’t really touch the piano again until several decades later when my seven-year-old son started taking lessons, and, to be supportive, I took up jazz lessons alongside him. But, overwhelmed by work and parenting two young children, I soon gave them up.
This time, I wanted things to be different. I told Mark I had a specific, concrete goal: to play Clair de lune by Claude Debussy, a piece I remember hearing from early childhood. The way Debussy used sustained notes and silences reminded me a little of Thelonious Monk, my favourite jazz pianist. My plan was to start with Debussy and then move on to jazz piano.
Most of my adult life, I never felt I had the time to be creative. I loved music, but I didn’t know how to “make music”. So when I realised I could take early retirement, it seemed like a dream come true. I imagined myself like Phil Connors, Bill Murray’s character in Groundhog Day, doing nothing but practising piano day after day, going from complete novice to virtuoso in one frantic montage sequence.
So that June, I threw myself in head first. I forced myself to practise and to re-learn how to read music, reciting the same mnemonics (like “All Cows Eat Grass”) to remember my keys that I’d been taught as a schoolboy. It didn’t come easily. I felt like I was learning a new language, but one I should have already known. I would try to memorise passages quickly so I wouldn’t have to read the notes, especially on Clair de lune, with its numerous sharps and flats. But Mark insisted that I persevere and, little by little, I improved.
Determined that there would be a day when I would totally master this piece, I set myself a deadline: I would perform before a gathering of friends on my 60th birthday. For months I did nothing but furiously practise. When the day came, around 30 friends and relatives crowded into my dining room to hear me play, and aside from a few minor slips, I managed to pull it off without embarrassing myself. People clapped warmly – they were, after all, my friends. I had won a race, I had risen to a challenge, but I still didn’t feel that I was really “making music”.
After that I continued my lessons and tried out some jazz pieces by Monk, but something had shifted. Even though I could play to a decent standard, I never felt I played well enough. There was always more to learn: the circle of fifths, chord inversions, seventh chords. My progress was painfully slow; I clearly was not a natural. And playing wasn’t giving me the same satisfaction I felt when I heard beautiful music played by others.
And then the pandemic came. When just about everyone around the world was throwing themselves into their hobbies, I joined them. Every day, I couldn’t wait to go out into my garden and stare at all the things that had changed overnight, even if bugs had eaten my broccoli or my spinach had bolted; I was fascinated to see how my sourdough starter bubbled, no matter how badly the last loaf had turned out. But what had ceased to bring me any kind of pleasure was the piano.
I had come to hate hearing myself play music badly. I got no pleasure from the act of missing notes. I didn’t want Zoom lessons; I didn’t want to be reminded that the conviviality of sharing music was forbidden indefinitely. While I really loved music, I realised I was not driven to make it myself. I wanted to listen to recordings of Monk playing Misterioso, not the failed attempts of my fingers.
Now that so many things that used to bring me pleasure were denied me, I began focusing on what few things I could do: gardening, hiking, cycling. I came to understand that I didn’t have to be that Renaissance man I’d always thought I ought to be. I could just do what feels good – and that was no longer the piano. So that spring, after nearly five years of lessons, I quit.
I still love music; I regularly go out to concerts and jazz clubs. But now my piano does nothing more than sit silently in my dining room, displaying family photos and collecting dust. And I’m perfectly happy with that.
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Brian Hanson-Harding is a retired English teacher living near New York City. He has written for publications including the New York Times, New Jersey Monthly and Working Mother