(International Peace Gardens, 7-11-05)

[Most of my students would be only a few years younger,] and most of my teaching colleagues, decades older.  [Every piano faculty member had the opportunity to give a seminar, and Bob, the chair of the department, began his by telling the student body] “Your metronome is your best friend.”  I cringed.  I’d already sat with Bob through a few days of meetings, lunches, and juries in which we were supposed to determine which students would go into whose teaching studio, and yet so far he hadn’t said much more to me that week beyond the suggestion that I cut my recital program in half for the final night’s performance.

——-

Ambient electronic music washed softly over the dimmed performing arts hall as piano students entered for my seminar a couple days later.  On the closed piano lid sat my laptop with lecture notes, and a nearby music stand held my notebook with a rough outline scribbled into it.  When the hall was filled, I picked up a microphone and began to speak over the music.  “I’d like to first read you an early response I had to this project.  This one I received within my first weeks of planning from a presenter in Oregon.  I quote, ‘Adam, it is clear to me that you are not a professional performer….’”  I went on as the music cushioned each embittered point that this person wrote to me about why America 88x50 would never work.  I stopped and looked up.  “Now, I’m not reading this to imply that the author is wrong.  In fact, most of the advice is pretty sound.  But this email demonstrates how some people have very fixed ideas about what they think is possible, and this often determines what they insist on telling others is possible.  

 “As pianists, you’ll hear a lot.  That you have poor technique, poor training, poor knowledge of the literature.  Maybe you have a limited repertoire, or your music’s too hard, or too easy, or you don’t practice enough, or maybe you practice too much.  Perhaps you’re unmusical, undisciplined, idealistic, undermotivated, overconfident, unpredictable, unprepared, unprofessional, too young, too old, too weak, too bold.  You need better sight-reading skills or a better grasp of theory.  You play too harshly, or too soft. Your hands are tight, fingers too thick, body too weak.  You don’t do enough competitions, or don’t network yourself well enough.  Maybe you just weren’t ‘born with it…’

“You may hear all this and more, like I did, or if you’re lucky maybe you won’t.  But criticism is an essential fuel to our work.  The story of my life in music, and especially my life in America 88x50, has been one of hearing ‘No’ every day.  But no one can tell me what I’m entitled or capable of doing.  That’s my job to find out.

“We are more than pianists.  We are artists, and as artists, we have an obligation to defy the impossible every day, an obligation that extends far beyond the piano.  You don’t owe the piano anything, but your creativity is your gift, your destiny, and you have to create a little piece of that destiny every day.  Call that your practice.”

——-

The entire piano faculty sat at a white plastic folding table having post-lecture coffee and cake.  Priscilla, who was a pianist, teacher, and also a nun, reached across the table and gently touched my wrist.  “Beautiful.”

“When do you even have the time to practice here at IMC?” asked Jenny, one of the few faculty members close to my age, earning her masters at University of Nebraska.

“According to him,” Bob interjected, “you don’t need to practice!”

There was a slight beat of silence at the table.

“Bob, I didn’t say that.”

“Yes, you did!” he shot back, his grin still frozen in place.  “You did.”

I turned to the rest of table.  “Did I say that?  Priscilla, did I say that?” 

“No, I don’t think so….” she answered, furrowing her brow, as if scanning through the entire lecture to double-check.  She looked up and turned to Bob.  “No, he didn’t.  He did great.  I don’t think IMC has ever had anything like it.”

“I don’t think it has either,” he answered, severing a piece of coffee cake with a plastic fork and chuckling, “…with that background music and microphone.”

“The microphone wasn’t even my idea!” I sputtered.  “Dwight gave—”

“…sounded like a sermon to me.”

I stopped, almost shaking, and looked to Jenny.  “I practice every night from about eleven till one in the morning because that’s my only free time.” 

——-

(North Dakota/Canadian border, 7-16-05)

At a roadhouse bar on the Canadian border, I celebrated the end of camp over beers and fried food with Mary, a fifty year old choreographer from Fargo who ran the dance program at IMC that week.  She’d recently divorced her husband of thirty-one years.  They had seven children.  

“I had this moment today,” she announced, leaning forward, fingers fluttering, and the front legs of her chair crashed to the floor.  ”I was down by the outdoor auditorium — you know, near the path to your cabin? — and I saw all these big beautiful trees in front of me, and I was like, what beautiful trees, and then I looked closer noticed this big dead tree right in the middle, and I thought, oh my God, that’s him, that’s my ex-husband.  Then I noticed that the tree right next to it was totally green except for one little dead branch, almost reaching out toward the big dead tree, and I was like, that’s me, I reached out to him for so long and that part of me is dead.  Then I saw these smaller trees circling them, and those were like our kids.”

I snuck some fries under the table to a yellow labrador retriever circling the bar. 

“Listen, you gotta’ get some money for this, hon,” Mary said abruptly, changing the subject.  ”For your tour.”  She blew a wisp of blonde hair from her face. “I mean, what’s your goal?” 

“Financially?” I hedged.

“Or whatever.”  

“I guess it’s not to go broke,” I said.

“Well, you need to ask for donations then.  After the intermission say, ‘To sustain this project, I accept donations, but I’d rather you buy one of my CDs so that I can blah blah blah…”

“Yeah?” 

“Um, yeah!  People love you by the second half.  They want to help you.  If those students tonight could’ve helped you, they would have.  They crowded you after the show.”

“I think they were all just saying good job.  Or goodbye.”

“Oh, and another thing!  You should say that Copland quote — the one about modern music? — before you play the Copland music.  Makes sense, right?  And you need to memorize it.  People see you onstage with a book and it just doesn’t work.”

“Okay.  I’ll do that.” 

The bar had almost completely emptied by the time we got up to leave.  Once outside, Mary and I hugged and she tore away in her white minivan.  Through the cloud of dust in her wake I saw the yellow lab from inside approaching me from across the parking lot.  A distant lake reflected the moon and in my mind I could hear echoes of Griffes’s “Lake at Evening” from my recital program.

Charles Tomlinson Griffes, “The Lake At Evening,” from Three Tone Pictures by adamtendler

I crouched to pet the dog, stroking his ears and body.  I felt overwhelmed with a sense of belonging, of love, and I began explaining out loud to this dog why he couldn’t join me on the road.  This went on for about five minutes before I finally stood.  The dog jumped on hind legs and put both its front paws on my shoulders, embracing me.  I almost wept.  “I’ll miss you too!” I cried.  “Thank you!”

And then his clench tightened, and he began writhing against me.  I started to struggle, but the more I tried to break free, the more forcefully he held to me, grinding and pumping into my thighs and pelvis.  I couldn’t escape his grip and started to imagine this dog ejaculating against my leg, and what that would feel like.  Jesus Christ!  Help!  Someone!  This dog’s gonna’ come on me!  And with a surge of adrenaline, I finally managed to twist my body and wrestle him off his balance, throwing the dog down into the dirt.  I scrambled backward, breathless and stunned, dripping with sweat, preparing for the dog to come at me again for another attack.  Instead, he staggered a moment and then galloped back inside as if I never existed.