Let me tell you about my music theory class and piano lessons. It all started because I
wanted to set an Emily Dickinson poem to music, but when I tried transposing the
melody in my head onto a music staff, I had no idea how to proceed. Determined, I
bought three piano books for beginners, read through them all, played “Mary Had a
Little Lamb” and quickly signed up for a class in music theory.
I love going to classes with twenty-somethings who jam (l’jam-gem, in Hebrew) and
study to become DJs. I fit right in, of course, so when we went around the class on
the first night and everyone said their age, I too said I was twenty-two. Now at
seventy-three I have acquired the self-confidence, motivation, backbone, or whatever
it’s called that prevented me from living fully when young.
By the time the class mastered tetra-chords, I knew I needed to start piano lessons.
After a break of sixty years, I returned to the piano and now practice an hour a day,
because I love it. In a few months I will be able to put Emily’s words to music. Even
without having the music written down, just humming the melody has enabled me to
memorize the poem that begins “I’ll tell you how the sun rose/ a ribbon at a time.”
Any of my readers who recall tenth grade English class with Mr. Burnett at Shaker
Heights High School will remember that poem.
In addition to my current piano lessons being enjoyable, as opposed to anxiety-
producing, as they were in 1957 when I was twelve and took a bus by myself to Cedar
-Lee and the teacher, a man with wire-rimmed glasses from the Cleveland Institute of
Music who never smiled and actually expected me to practice at home, my current
piano teacher lives in FLORENTINE. This is the coolest neighborhood in Tel Aviv. On Vashingtone, one street over from my teacher’s fourth-floor walk-up, I found
COCO, a Vegan Chocolate & Cacao Temple. The owner, who spent time in South
America after his IDF service, sells a ritual cocoa in a small paper Kiddush cup for
NIS 15. The drink is made with pure natural raw organic chocolate beans, organic
coconut milk, mineral water, and organic coconut sugar, spiced with chili and ginger.
This drink is better than coffee and expands the mind immediately. I drink it once a
week before my piano lesson and, being a lover of ritual, say a bracha before doing
so. (Blessed are you, oh Lord, creator of Chocolate.) The drink is based on a Mayan
ritual drink, according to the farbrente owner.
Just writing about this drink has made me lose my train of thought. What did I want
to tell you? Piano lessons and music theory. Yes, I am learning a new language that
does not demand words, preparing myself for the possibility that I will be one of the
unlucky old women to develop Alz. At least I will be able to bang on the keys and sing
“You Ain’t Nothing but a Hound Dog,” structured in the miraculous 12-Bar Blues in C
format. Who knew?? The world of music is endless and fascinating. As a newbie I
enjoy each discovery.
Meanwhile, the world is imploding, but I keep my balance, secure in the knowledge
that all chords on all major scales share the same structure, which is to say that
chords I IV and V will always be the main guys and that that miraculous structure,
that sublime creation, which last week was still hidden from me, gives me hope for
the future of mankind and the natural world.
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