Piano Redux, Hopefully

I am going to play the piano. Even if it kills me.

At the age of ten, I told my parents I would no longer take piano lessons. It was my first serious strike against adult authority. Over sixty years later they are in heaven, but laughing while I stare befuddled and bewildered at the 88 keys before me.

While I never learned more than the basic scale, mom and dad still felt I was worthy to receive their monstrous stand up grand piano when they vacated their home. It was a Willis model V: huge, bigger than a diesel engine, a massive structure of lacquered maple, mahogany veneer, spruce, mirror, steel, copper strings with ebony and ivory keys. The behemoth was so heavy that it actually cracked the tiles in our townhome when it was rolled over the transom.

And here, more than sixty years later, the piano takes its place in our family room, an unflinching protective barrier against nuclear attacks and continental drift.

I often thrilled at the opening keyboard riffs of popular songs. Saturday In The Park (Chicago), Stuck With You (Huey Lewis), Hill Street Blues (Mike Post)…these pieces were introduced to our ears, thirsty for memorable intros that once heard, never left us. I took it as a simple challenge to learn those riffs. And I did. Then, I could sit at any piano, and pound out the beginning notes to these iconic songs. The trouble was, my audience, stunned by my virtuoso renderings asked for more. I always had to choke, and confess, “That’s all I know, just the intro.” Groans and dismissive shrugs were their responses.

So when I retired, I decided to return to the keys, and start anew.

Over the past ten years I have downloaded several dozen songs for which there are reasonably decipherable musical score. While I plunked away at a few pieces, I was happily involved in other leisure activities. So the initiative was dampened over time.

The simplest piece demands hours of practice.

But with the coming of COVID, time was on my side, and I renewed my attempts. It was only then that I discovered a new factor in learning to play. My brain does not necessarily connect. I have sat at the keyboard, literally for hours and worked through a simple piece, reading from score, translating to scale letters, and then picking the right key.

I likened it to translating from English to Arabic via Japanese. Start. Finish. Repeat. Over and over. While I can imagine the right sounds, the recall is gone. So what should take a ten-year-old a week to master, I struggle after a month of intense focus to eke out a recognizable rendition at half speed.

Still, I continue. I have now conquered two tunes. City of Stars (LaLa Land), and All I Ask (Phantom of the Opera). Both are simple constructions, and I have memorized them. The performance is still cringeworthy to any listener, as they wait hopefully for the next note, hesitantly offered by my uncooperative left and right hands.

Another factor I have discovered is the value of practice. After probably a 200 hours of struggle, I am now able to link musical score, note by note, to keyboard. I am learning! But even as I do that, my eyes are lighting off distress flares. It dawned on me yesterday that the constant shifting between the printed sheet of score and the keyboard is tough on the eyes. Graduated bifocals do not help!

Through this musical epiphany I have also made an additional discovery of the sales slip for our 600-pound furniture piece.

The piano, an upright Willis (1884-1967), was made in Montreal, and purchased by my mother on credit in 1949. She got it, used, for $350: $200 down, with $14 monthly payments on the balance. Conservatively, the piano is nearly a hundred years old.

I point this out because its tone is bold and clear, and still in tune. It is far more impressive than the late model Casio electric piano which I also practice on in the back room.

While the Casio offers countless digital features for enhancing my play, the aged Willis responds like a thankful, professional artist, giving full-bodied resonance to every note, no matter how badly I stumble through a piece.

I am still learning the notes and the keys, and my progress is enough that I am encouraged to grab a seat at the piano any time I have a chance.

If you have youngsters about, sit them down at the piano. I am making up for lost time!

Culture, Entertainment, Music, Thank You

Stones: They Gather No Moss

63,000 showed up for night two of the #nofilter tour

Two hours, 25 songs, superbly prepared and shared.

The Rolling Stones visited Soldier Field last night. 63,000 showed up to welcome them. Someone remarked that they had been together for 55 years..crazy!

Actually, based on the details I read off the back of a worn tour shirt two rows down in front of me, they have been making music for 57 years.

It is not surprising that they are here, despite their frenetic flight path. The secret is, they make good music. Music that lasts and spans generations of fans.

I know this by their choice of “support” band that played for 40 minutes before the Stones. The warm up band, which will remain anonymous, came from a different generation.

Brought up from Texas, they are labeled as a southern rock band. They served up about 8 songs which were excruciating. Loud, atonal, angry, scowling and screeching, viciously hammering their guitars, they daisy-cut the audience. Not that the audience mattered, because they never noticed we were there. Even their soft song was strident and angry. When they strode off the stage the applause was one of acknowledgement of the effort, and thanks…for getting off the stage.

But back to the Stones. Lest we forget, they have been an item since 1962, so they are audience-tested, and found worthy. Last night they packaged the evening with a controlled energy that never quit.

The Stones packaged the evening with a controlled energy that never quit.

They played for two hours, delivering 25 songs. The sound system was the same as the warm up band, but the product was superbly better, which might be the genius of the Stones. They showed us how good rock and roll can be, with considerably less effort and volumes more goodwill.

Keith Richards subtly picked his iconic riffs.

The music was real music: recognizable melodies obviously, but prepared so elegantly.

Keith Richards subtly picked his iconic riffs without raising a sweat. Ronnie Woods rippled across the frets, and smiled to the audience like a proud chef building a plate. Charlie Watts at the age of 78 worked the drums for two straight hours without pause. You would expect he had forearms like Popeye, but no, he is a smaller, diminuitive man who executes with precision and focus, but not brute force.

And of course, Sir Mick danced across all of our heads smiling, exhorting, cheering us and the band on. We were his pets for the evening. It’s amazing what a heart valve tune-up can do for the soul.

It’s every rocker’s wish that the Stones will keep on delivering. Maybe for the concerts, the community, the culture, but mostly because they have continued to produce good, clever, memorable music–a formidable and treasured body of work over 57 years. It’s loud, but not abusive, rhythmic but not staccato, well played, and best of all, you can sing along, which we all did.

Culture, Music, Science

Then, There, That Song

On our Delhi FB site, my home town, I just saw a nearly ancient picture of Caffries Hardware store. Ancient, because I remember walking along its oiled hardwood floors, when all of a sudden someone turned up the radio, and the singer yelled out, “You shake my nerves and you rattle my brain…”. it was 1957.

My Dad stopped in his tracks, looking up, “Good Lord, what is that?”

Nobody responded, as they were all riveted listening to Jerry Lee Lewis pound out his iconic symptoms. I too was transfixed, because I had never heard anything like it, and it changed my view and love for music forever. Studying the floor, I noticed that Caffries had hammered straight lines of nails one foot apart from the back door to the front, for the purpose of measuring out lines and ropes.

While Lewis beat a bass line with his left hand and scampered on the high keys like a runaway flywheel, I stared at the ceiling, and back at the radio which was high up on a shelf, strategically placed there for audibility and security against moving the dial.

Why do I remember this so vividly?

There are reams of web pages with articles explaining the rush of dopamine, our reward hormone, Oxytocin a social/love brain spurt, and ramblings among different parts of the noggin, all feasting on music, a satisfying meal for memory.

They say that music may be a soothing and regenerative aid to dementia and Alzheimers sufferers. I hope it is. But on that day, Jerry Lee and Caffries were permanently bonded in my head.

I had a similar experience the first time I heard Dylan’s Like A Rolling Stone. 1965, working on Monteyne’s farm, our kiln hanger, Rob Hewson had hung his mighty transistor radio on the side of the kiln. Above the endless clatter of the tying machine, and the grind of the conveyor lifting the sticks up to Rob, Dylan’s piano sadly rambles away among the guitars, all the while he asks the riveting question, over and over again, “how does it feel?” I am taking sticks off the tying machine while smoking an Old Gold plain tip. I had never bought Old Golds before, and never did again, but I remember on that day, listening to Dylan while I dragged on one from the corner of my mouth. When I hear the song today, Old Golds still come to mind.

Where we grew up, radio was pretty tame and choices limited. The parents listened to CFRB for news sports and gab. CBL had Elwood Glover. The kids listened to CHUM or CKEY.

For whatever reason, our house wouldn’t tune into 1050AM for CHUM, but late at night we could get CKEY–when it was 580AM on the dial. Sitting at an elaborate study cabinet in my brother’s room, I would tune in quietly to CKEY, and Norm Perry as he ran the turn table. There was a time when gimmick songs were profuse, but none more than Monster Mash. That was 1962, and again pushed the listeners’ ears even further out of whack as the story unfolded, ‘working in the lab late one night’.

Monster Mash creates an indelible mark, a gauzy multi-sensory image of me sitting at a large gray study cabinet, designed by Popular Mechanics, and unstintingly assembled by my Dad. It was modular, arriving from the basement in two pieces, painted battleship gray on the outside, and dark red on the inside. Shelves to the left, it had a chained, drop down desk, and cabinets with locks to the right. It smelled of paint and plywood, smooth at the sanded edges, with small pock marks from a student’s compass point jamming the grain endlessly.

But in the corner was a dandy little cream-colored plastic radio with two dialing knobs shaped like bullets that managed volume and tuning. I surreptitiously listened to that radio every night while shuffling papers for homework, chewing the end off a pencil, and staring at a small fluorescent light in the cabinet. I listened to hundreds of songs, but it’s Monster Mash that brings back the cabinet, every time.

Is there a time when the ‘music-evoked autobiographical memory’ goes away? That’s what they call it: a MEAM. I am not sure, but it has been years since I have experienced a new MEAM. The last I remember was sitting in our 71 Chevelle listening to a country station outside Port Hope on highway 401. My parents were staring ahead, and randomly twirling the FM dial, probably looking for Elwood Glover. Instead, they hit Loretta Lynn as she spun a tale about herself, “When You’re Looking At Me, You’re Looking At Country”.

That was my first intense audit of country music, in 1971, and I was hooked. The Chevy was a Super Sports, two-door, racing green with a black vinyl roof, parabolic rear windows, and a beautiful chromed gear shift in the center with black bucket seats. It drove like a dream, and drank gas like a demon. It was the perfect vessel for delivering Loretta Lynn, which I remember vividly, crystal clear, today.

I have a soundtrack running in my head every waking and sleeping hour. Tunes loop continuously. I am thankful still, as a few songs come up, that I have those visual memories to accompany them; it’s good entertainment.

Culture, Entertainment, Music

Hall, Oates, And A Soundtrack That Won’t Quit

The kids in leather, and launched.

We missed Hall & Oates the first time around, but 40 years later they paid us back with a superb performance in Toronto in June.

Years ago, the music of this creative duo crept into our consciousness with Blue Room’s rendition of “Every Time You Go Away” in Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

Little did I fathom at the time that he had covered this wistful piece from one of the truly great composing partnerships of the 70s and 80s.

The tiny Apple Nano: 1200 songs in a Saltine.

Still unaware of Hall & Oates, I next captured “One On One” on my Apple Nano about 4 years ago.

Buying the Nano was an awakening long overdue. I was looking for a storage device to hold some music that I was collecting: a couple lost decades of 70s-80s Pop melodies that I had shunned during my Folk and Classic Country years.

One day I was in Best Buy when I asked a helper,

“How many songs can I get on this little Nano?” It was about the same size as a Saltine cracker, but sturdier. Its black crystal hinted at deep, magical powers.

She answered, “About 1200.”

I laughed, “I don’t know 1200 songs!”

Four years later we have 957 cuts on the Nano, which include about twelve from our happiest discovery: Hall & Oates.

That evolved when I was given a publicity CD at a Direct Marketing Association trade show. ULine, a container company–you know, “boxes”— somehow concluded that a free CD of 15 H&O cuts in a ULine-branded sleeve was a good giveaway item to promote itself to mail order companies.

The Molson Amphitheater on a warm evening by the lake.

Not knowing who Hall & Oates were, I stuffed the CD into a drawer and didn’t retrieve it for a year or so. One day I popped it into a player, and heard the iconic “Out of Touch” composed by John Oates.

My wife perked up when she heard “Kiss On My List”,

“I love that song! Who is this?”

“It’s Hall & Oates. You know them?”

“Nope, but I love this song. What else is on the CD?”

With that we rolled through their top hits repertoire, and pinched ourselves several times as we knew these songs, but had never connected the composers.

An enthused Hall & Oates fan arrives early.

The upshot is twofold. First, we needed to get to a Hall & Oates concert. Second, we now recognized ULine as a brand of… boxes. That learning process took about 5 years, but I hope some advertising manager somewhere is having a small vindicating shiver, a frisson, right now, much to their puzzlement.

—Which brought us to the Molson Amphitheater on the waterfront of Toronto, looking out on Lake Ontario.

Daryl Hall lights up on Man Eater.

This open air concert venue seats about 5,000 under the roof, and another 1,500 or so up on the lawn. On a warm summer evening, with a cooling humid breeze coming off the lake, one can’t find a better place to enjoy a live concert.

There are auditoriums and arenas for McCartney, The Stones and Bruno Mars, but you are one of 60,000 fans holding your ears. Instead, the Molson Amphitheater is the happiest compromise of a concert crowd and intimacy rolled into one.

The ticket prices are good, and there is no more politely enthused and amicable concert fan than a Canadian. Every performance we have attended at the Amphitheater evokes a heartfelt thank you from the performers about how welcome, and safe, they feel in Toronto.

Wow! It must be pretty tough everywhere else.

Oates is the Yin in this timeless duo.

Our mental image of Hall & Oates is locked in the 70s. A couple young guys, with hair and rugged good looks. Up close today, on the jumbotron, it’s 40 years later. But the genes still hold their ground.

Even better, so does their music.

Predictably, they opened with Maneater, a solid up tempo number that had the audience on its feet in an instant. What followed was a succession of hits from the 70s: Sarah Smile, She’s Gone, It’s A Laugh, Kiss On My List.

A friendly Toronto on Lake Ontario

Somewhere half way through their performance Daryl Hall hung up his guitar and went to the keyboard, which was a delight. The camera focused on his hands pounding these hypnotic chords for 8, 12, 16 bars, typical of their best songs where the lyrics open only after the background music is solidly in place.

Hall’s voice has great range. It’s remarkably soulful up on the high notes, and he is completely unchained in front of 5,000 fans, delivering melody and passion. Meanwhile, he works the keyboard with complex chords, lots of 8-fingered flats and sharps, in minor and major…a true believer of “black keys matter”.

Their music is complex, melodic, and memorable.

John Oates is the journeyman guitarist. He switches between several during the night, and works up and down the neck effortlessly. Strutting across the stage he occasionally sides up to Hall, which is the only time you see the physical Yin/Yang of these two: Oates the significant counterbalance to the tall and blonde Hall.

There is a third component to the Hall & Oates sound and that is the roving saxophone of Charles DeChant. This ponytailed magician nuances every tune with mellow contemplation. His signature delivery is an extended solo in “I Can’t Go For That, No Can Do” which really stretches the boundaries of contemplation to hard core introspection. Too long for my taste, but for many, right on.

The group returns for two ovations. We can’t get enough.

The team comes out for two ovations, after prolonged applause. They close with Private Eyes and then back again with Rich Girl, which by then has the audience screaming for more.

But no more, they bid good night.

The genius of this pair is their melodic creativity. It is complex music: hard to dance to I think, but easily remembered, expansive tunes that you can hum long after the hall goes silent.

Indeed, the tunes play over and over, inside my head. After walking 9 holes of golf I have re-sung Private Eyes a hundred times without thinking.

Unfortunately, I can also wake up at 3am, and still have the soundtrack bouncing along, varied, hypnotic, and without cease.

Thanks for reading! If you are an H&O fan, you will find their tour dates here.

Phil Brown

"Like triple cream– rich, pungent, a little barnyardy, and spreads easily. A good cheese."

Category Archives: Music

Piano Redux, Hopefully

Stones: They Gather No Moss

Then, There, That Song

Hall, Oates, And A Soundtrack That Won’t Quit

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