by Gina Cariño
Home >> Faith Got My Tongue
First, in Germany, a grumpy old Herr Professor came to me once a week. He was a reincarnation of Beethoven and he would get purple in the face when it was all too clear that I had not been near the piano in seven days.
Then, in the Philippines, I went to a music conservatory on Taft Avenue. Taft Avenue, named so after one of our American governors who became U.S. presidents, is Manila’s biggest parking lot. Yes, having to travel through dusty downtown Manila traffic two afternoons a week, after school, was tough.
My teacher was Miss Faith Got-My-Tongue. That is how it would sound if you read the real spelling. She would kick off her shoes when her feet itched. I’d go for the crescendo to drown the sound (and stench) of moist stretched stockings being rubbed together, more than the claxons storming in through the open window from peaktime Taft. I loathed her heavily powdered face beaming with pride after one of our yearly recitals. But I will acknowledge that Miss Got-My-Tongue gave me a musical base and an outlet for my temperament.
Finally, in the United States, I had Anna Beck, oh Anna Beck… I still think of Anna Beck at the sight of a round metal can of Danish cookies. She often brought us a can.
At the start, it was good news to be having lessons at home again. Before long, however, the thought of her approaching visits began to weigh on us three kids. We dreaded the day and the hour and I remember that we haggled over who should sit first, second, and last. Last promised postponement, first meant getting it over with quick.
Anna Beck was kind, patient, and gentle, but there was something about her that was oppressive to me. She was scarier than a skeleton; she was a walking corpse. She had skin like skimmed milk that felt cold and clammy on my right hand, and her arm was like dead weight, and boneless. She was determined to show me how the brilliance of an arpeggio came not so much from the fingers as from a wrist that moved in waves.
Mrs. Beck always called when unable to come, but one day she just didn’t show up. “Maybe she’s dead,? I said.
The following morning it was Mr. Beck who called.
Me and my big mouth. Poor Anna Beck.
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Posted on http://www.weeklyletter.com at 2007-11-22 09:00:00 +0100
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Which of these would you rather be?
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Since no one is commenting, I will self-comment.
In the hope that students will follow suit (ie, follow my example), I will reveal that I voted piano manufacturer and explain why.
If I were the owner of Steinway & Sons, for example, I would not only be rich. I would also know a bit about tuning pianos. And I would perhaps play the piano a bit and therefore perhaps be able to teach not only English AND German but also piano.
What about you? What did you vote and why?
I would rather be a juggler and a bluegrass banjo player. I probably have to wait till a future lifetime.
Of course, I would rather be a guitar player. Well, in fact I am, but I mean a good guitar player, like Eric “Slowhand” Clapton or EVH. Or even ACDC’s Angus Young.
Yes, maybe like Angus. That way I would enjoy my guitar until getting exhausted and I would be forever young. Great!!
What a scary and intriguing text! When you’re reading the last lines, you know that something bad is about to happen. What suspense!
Changing the subject, it’s good to know, Juan Carlos, that you revere an Australian! I can picture you wearing a school uniform and jumping around on stage playing “Highway to Hell.” Have you seen the movie The School of Rock with your kids? I think you’d like it.
Hello,
For the given choices, I think I would be an anonymous second-rate pianist.
This way I would be able to play the piano, enjoy music and listen to and play with wonderful piano starts or even with Juan Carlos, but without the pressure of having to be the best or having to look fantastic in all performances.
Regards,
Cristina
Scary music lessons, Gina! When Mr. Beck called the next day was it to inform you that something had happened? Or … was for some other reason?
I can imagine it now … he phones your house and asks if anyone has seen her as she hasn’t been home for a couple of days.
You all stay silent, staring at the floor.
One of you mumbles, no ... and the cellar door creaks …
What really happened to poor Anna Beck?
I, too, would like to be a second-rate pianist. Right now I am at least a fourth or fifth rate pianist; I play only for myself.
My piano teacher’s name was Mrs. Kots and she lived in the house across the alley from us. She had a mysterious house cut in two. One half was for piano students and the other half was just for her and her three million cats, who sometimes jumped up on the piano during our lessons. I will always remember the time when I couldn’t stop laughing when she told me to slow down on Bach’s Two Part Invention No. 8, otherwise it would “fly like the wind.” I hated doing scales.
When I got to college, I studied organ. I was expected to practice but I must admit that I am a bad student and got in trouble with my teacher for not progressing more than just a couple of times. The organ is a fabulous instrument to play. Just one chord with all stops pulled makes you feel so powerful!
I’m similar to Juan Carlos. I love the guitar and have played since I was eleven, but very rarely professionally.Juan Carlos is a man after my own heart ( le gusta las mismas cosas que yo). I love heavy metal music,especially the old heavy metal / rock. Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Iron maiden etc, but nowadays the guitar has become a very complicated with the likes of Van Halen ,Joe Satriani ,Yngwie Malmsteen etc.
I’ve just recently bought a self-teaching music book called “Speed Mechanics for lead guitar” by Troy Stetina. It’s a briliant book,but they’ll probably bury me with it in the coffin before I learn to play all the tunes.
With reference to old guitar teachers,I particulary remember a guitar teacher, (but I’ve forgotten his name) in my primary school who taught me to play “the boogie” and a son called “How come” by Ronnie Lane.
I remember him because he had a bit of a lisp (pelo en la lengua) and he used to always have a cup of cofee, and when he was explaining to me what to do proceeded to spit it all over me, so my guitar lessons were quite a wet affair!
oh…they were happy days!
I was so lucky to go to a school where one of the subjects on the timetable was called ‘Orchestra’. Everyone in the school was taught a musical instrument. The juniors began learning rhythm with triangles, castanets and tambourines. Then when we were 11 we moved on to violins , violas , cellos , basses, brass and woodwind . I learned the violin but was given a place in the school orchestra to play the timpani (like my brother before me). We were taught by an ex-military bandsman called Wallace Sethna who created the most beautiful arrangement of Edelweiss) that I have ever heard.
At the age of fifteen I started teaching myself the guitar, the bodhran and the tin whistle . My teacher was terrible but later in life, when I lived in Donostia, I played in an Irish band every Wednesday for eight years in a pub where the Basque Irish met.
I love all music. Dick Gaughan , Led Zeppelin, Bach , The Dubliners , Mike Oldfield , Thin Lizzy , Faure , Kate Rusby, Alboka , Limerick, Aly Bain , Billy Bragg , John Martyn , Jake Thackray , Lindisfarne , The Beatles, Mary Bergin , Miles Davis , Nick Drake , Slade, Mozart and Sheila Chandra and and and….
I’d rather be blind than deaf.
I’d rather be DEAD than deaf!
My piano teacher’s name was Mommy and she lived in the same house from us. (What?!!!!)
For a while we played some simple pieces for four hands. Now we only play Chopsticks.
Your piano teacher can’t be your mother unless your mother is a real piano teacher. My aunt Itziar is a real piano teacher in the Conservatory of Irún and her husband, Jorge, is a violin teacher here and there. But they have not offered to give me lessons.
Hi,
If I have to choose one of these options, I’ll choose English teacher!!! English teacher of Educaterra, of course!!! ;)
When I was a child, my parents enrolled me in guitar, piano, “bandurria” and “timple” lessons… So, now I am sick and tired of musical instruments…
Bye,
Leticia.
P.D.: “bandurria” is a type of lute and “timple” is a musical instrument from the Canary Islands.
Gina!!!!, you are full of surprises. I didn’t know you play the piano, and still better, I didn’t know you are a witch…… a good witch of course.
Anyway, I like music and I’d like play an instrument. If I can choose. I prefer ‘la dolçaina’. (A typical instrument from Valencia)
Kind regards,
Ramón
Hi:
It´s a surprise to know that Gina is a pianist!!! Congratulations.
Your letter remember me my children: they called their teacher how “el hígado” (liver), because alwais he was angry. It´s possible that this character is property of the profession.
Best regards:
jose m.
After Anna Beck, I quit playing the piano altogether. Then in my early twenties I had Mrs. Lydia Buñag, but only for a couple of years. Then nothing. Nothing at all for about a decade. Then midlife perhaps has a way of making one yearn for roots… an old vocation or hobby, or simply something you did in the past. I think it was the Jane Campion film The Piano that made me want to play the piano again. I remember how the sight and sound was simply astounding and I had a heyday with the otherwise common, seen-before imagery of ocean as uterus, of lush jungle as womb, of rain as amniotic fluid. The equation LOSE PIANO/umbilical cord = GAIN VOICE was kind of old-school psychoanalytic but who cares… Will someone please think of other piano movies and tell/remind us about it?
… other piano movies? The Pianist – Adrian Brody played a Polish Jewish musician struggling to survive the purge of World War II. I watched it with my daugher a few weeks ago. Being only fifteen, she was quite shocked at the way we humans have been treating our fellow humans through history. Oh, I’ve just remembered. Sam – the piano player in Casablanca!
La tourneuse de pages (2006). About a gifted piano-player who fails the Conservatory entrance examination because the president of the jury distracted her. Years later, she seeks revenge…
Music and languages eh?
A lovely topic to explore. But more than anything what I take out from the article…is the effect & influence that a teacher can have on any student beyond what the teacher says or does.
Yes! There’s a certain intimacy that happens and sticks in your memory with one-on-one music lessons. It’s just you and teacher, and at very close range. You smell her compact powder or his aftershave lotion, you hear every subtle clearing of the throat. And there is physical contact. The teacher has to actually touch you, shift you, position you, press you. The touch is warm or cold, dry or sticky, rough or smooth, light or heavy. This doesn’t happen in one-on-one language classes, does it?
As for cinema. Yes! Play it again, Sam. And what about the piano scene in Billy Wilder’s The Apartment? Remember how the pianist plays that song whenever Shirley Maclaine walks into the piano bar? I’ve been trying to learn that beautiful piece on my own for years now but the notes are not easy to read. I need a teacher.
Hi Everybody
From I was child, I always would be an artist.
Really, I think and believe that I have aptitudes for it. I always had dance and it is my dream would be a dancer or an actress, a good actress.
Yes, but now I’m working to Telefonica, while, I continue with my flamenco classes dreaming about it.
Bye
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