The Recital

Stardancers Horizon is in Glendale, California, a largish suburb on the far east side of the San Fernando Valley. On the third Sunday of November, as wild fires loomed in the distance, there took a place a musical variety show of which I was a part. It was at this recital that I was to publicly display the reach and range of my musical ability, which have developed appreciably since I wandered into the music store down the street and wandered out with a standing date for piano lessons. I had never taken part in such an event before. My first dalliance with musicianship was guitar lessons from one Mr. Sato in fourth grade; the lessons often ended in tears, and I left to pursue another impossible dream: football. I did the diligence on practicing for the show, but I knew all along that the real fruits of my labor would turn up on this page.

*****

Five Star School of Music & Dance is located on a side street off Brand Blvd, the main commercial drag in Glendale. The painted piano keys that adorn the outside have been repurposed in the past decade, I suspect, by its Armenian-American ownership to take pride in the Red, White and Blue. A cursive caption reads, “Remembering 9-11”. I had been walking around the neighborhood one Saturday last February, listening to the Tom Waits song “Jockey Full of Bourbon” over and over when I happened upon it. I was looking at the guitars when Michael, the resident axe-wielder, approached me. Michael is a tall, pale guy with glasses that make him look bug-eyed and a goatee that, like his remaining hair, is translucent. When I mentioned that I’d been thinking about taking piano lessons, he turned me over to Edwin, the owner, saying, “he needs it, man. He needs the music!” Edwin offered me a single lesson at a certain price, but a nominal savings if I was to make this a regular thing. Ever the discerning consumer, I chose the latter, and may have skipped to the comic book store down the street, still listening to “Jockey Full of Bourbon”. I needed the music.

Edwin is Armenian by heritage but Iranian by birth. A bearish guy, he has a barrel chest, a woolly mustache, a smattering of acne around his neck, and pile of chest hair that flummoxes even the strictest collars. Growing up in Iran, he was locked in a room for two hours a day to practice piano. When he plays, his fingers are so quick it’s like they yearn for escape. He’s terribly warm. Much coffee is offered and drunk between twelve and one on Saturdays, and high-fives are in order whenever I nail a particular exercise.

I started fast in the lessons. So fast, in fact, that I began to think I had perfect pitch and would be playing Ray Charles tunes in no time. Edwin sold me a new Casio keyboard at a “used” price. A few weeks later, I was sure that I was tone deaf and wondered if I should just come to terms with the fact that I had no musical ability. In the ensuing months, I've gone back and forth between those extremes, but mostly remain in the middle. When I practice, even for a few minutes a day, the lesson goes well, and I feel good. When I let it slide, which is more often the case, I limp to the store, through the lesson and then back to my car in the parking garage.

Chattering about the recital began in early October. At the time, I was playing something called “Halloween”, a “Danse Macabre” for Dummies that Edwin wrote. It was fun, and I was getting it. I had remained noncommittal about attending the recital until Edwin opened a book, put it in front of me and said that this was what I’d be playing. He wasn’t asking. The song he chose, the exclamatory “Got Those Blues!” was appealing because it seemed easy. It was also simple and repetitive: a standard 12 bar blues (Edwin’s words) played twice, the second time with the right hand an octave higher. A flourish at the end. As it drew closer, the recital became more of a running gag in my own mind than something I’d actually committed to doing. I fell in love with the image of me standing shoulder to shoulder with a bunch of 11 year-olds like a line graph charting my own ridiculousness. I used it to entice a couple of friends into attending. I even considered buying a bow tie but didn’t want to give the game away. All the pieces were in the place for a barnstormer of a blog post.

It turns out that the too-hilariously named Stardancers Horizon is a practice/exhibition space for ballroom dancing. Mirrors along one wall and alternating corrugated/foil ceiling tiles reflect the action on the parkay floor. When necessary, the lighting can be lowered to the dramatic levels of a junior high social.

When I walked in, the woman taking tickets looked at me strangely and asked me to prove myself. A videographer monitored my young coevals as they ran about, chitchatting and tugging at their parents. The girls wore floor length dresses in either black or white; the boys, like me, rocked neckties. Equipment dominated the dance floor: three keyboards, an amp setup for the guitarists and a white baby grand in the corner, but there was still some parkay left over for the dancers. Yes, the dancers. Tables and chairs were dotted around. To the left, a card table sat laden with five-inch high plastic trophies--stars, of course. My friends Blake and Vy showed up to provide moral support, both dressed for the occasion. Feedback squealed as the MC called us to attention. Showtime.

Edwin himself set the tone early. The lights went down, and bathed in a saturated goldish glow, he performed a new age-y piece of his own arrangement. Take note, it stated: play, and play well. I should note at this point that I was not only the only grown man in the recital but the lone male to play the piano. Except for Shant Y--., a gourd-shaped little guy with high hair, who managed to play something on the violin, the rest of the boys chose guitar. One kid, the geeky, endearing Thor, wailed out an instrumental cover of a Muse song, with Michael laying down the bass line. My piano counterparts were a collection of daunting females, almost all of whom were pre-teens. The dangerously talented B--. sisters, Leah and Loren, went one after another, playing faintly familiar classical pieces with surgical precision. They later accompanied a singer, KC I--., on piano and cello.

Almost every kid did a bang-up job. They got up, played their song and exited to the polite applause of the crowd and hollers of their families. There was nothing funny or ironic or quaint about it. They played, and they played well. The numbered list of the participants on each table didn’t provide an accurate guide to who went when, so I sat there feeling rootless and endangered. I was losing my ability to pick and choose objects for ridicule. I had gone there to be the smartass adult and wound up like just another 12 year-old, red faced and fidgety.

And so it stung that much more when it was my turn, and I blew it. I could feel the blood percolate in my ears when the MC called my name. I gestured false confidence with my right hand as I crossed the floor and took my seat at white baby grand. The keys seemed to stretch out forever. The Casio I practice on is smaller, and so when I put my right hand where I was used to playing, it made an unfamiliar sound. I scrambled for the next octave, but clanked a discordant note with my left. It wasn’t exactly a false start, but it was enough to make Edwin call out, “C!” from the crowd and come over to set me right. I started playing, and knew I was going too fast. The two basic notes in “Got Those Blues!” are to be played long and short, long and short: bluesy. I was hitting them one after another, so that they sounded more like the beeping of a car when the lights are on or the door’s ajar. I made all the mistakes I had practiced myself out of: the wrong bass chords, the wrong changes, the wrong combinations. When it came time to go up an octave on the second go-round, I left a creaking pause while my hand searched for the keys. It’s a short piece to begin with, “Got Those Blues!”, but I finished it in half as much time as I’d practiced. When I was done, I held up my right hand again, this time to signal the polite applause.

*****

“Great job” Edwin said to me before I scuttled off the floor and back to my seat. Blake and Vy were equally encouraging. In truth, I wasn’t the worst kid there. I was more appropriate than the hip-hop dance crew, and more practiced than the girl who tried to play “Greensleeves” on guitar and kept getting lost and going back to the chorus. And I like to think I was braver than Hope J--., the octogenarian who was supposed go directly ahead of me but publicly demurred for lack of experience. Well, maybe.

After a couple more acts, there was a ten-minute intermission. There would be a trophy presentation, the MC reminded us, so please stay until the end. I suggested to my friends that we beat a path. As they went to pull their car around, I waited for Edwin, to say my goodbyes. He was on one of the synthesizers, coaching Minh M--., the other adult in the show, who’s awesome.

“Why were you so nervous?” asked Edwin, without looking up.

I said I didn’t know. I walked up closer to where he was.

“I’ve actually gotta get going, Edwin.”

“You are not staying until the end?” he asked me. He didn’t stop playing. “You will miss your trophy.”

“I’ll pick it up next week.”