Memoir 3

When I was five years old, my parents decided that, like my sister, I should take piano lessons. My sister is four years older than I. She was pretty good at the piano. I was awful although my mother insisted that I was "very good for my age." I was awful. Even though I was only five, I remember clearly that when I played, it didn't sound like music to me. Everything sounded like Chopsticks. I played at one piano recital, my first public music performance, and when I finished, the audience applauded politely, and I remember feeling acutely embarrassed because I knew I wasn't any good.

I played first that night, and my poor sister, because she was the most advanced, played last. So naturally, she had to sit there through the whole terrible recital, getting more and more nervous until it was finally her turn. She had an eight-page piece to play, which she had learned and memorized perfectly. She somehow played the first page and then jumped to the last page, so she was suddenly done after about seventy seconds. She sobbed hysterically, as I recall. We both quit piano lessons.

It's amazing that my parents had been able to buy the piano, anyway. We struggled endlessly just to pay the rent and the bills. So how did they afford a piano? The answer is, we were Jewish children, so we had to take piano lessons. "That is all you know and all you need to know." Despite the entire piano fiasco and that traumatic debut performance (the first of many nerve-wracking and sometimes crushing performing experiences for me), my love of music never abated, even for an instant. Nothing could ever be more joyful, it seemed, than listening and rocking to my records and shutting out the rest of the world.

Aunt Bea: Roe, I think you should take him to see somebody. He can't talk.

Mom: He talks beautifully, Bea. He just doesn't talk to YOU.

Bea: Take him to see somebody. I'll pay for it.

Mom: Bea, mind your own business. I don't want your money, and he's fine.

Bea: I'm your sister. Don't get defensive.

Mom: Bea, go home.

Mom was the most forgiving person in the world, but she wouldn't take any guff where her kids were concerned. So she didn't listen to anybody about my alleged verbal deficiencies and just kept buying me records and kvelling while she watched me listen, rock, and sing along with them. She was something.