Batman and the Boy Who Couldn’t Play the Piano

In the mid-1960s, the TV show Batman was a wonder to a 5-year old boy. Not only did my son, Lloyd, love drawing the cartoon character, he was passionate about the music. I bought the printed score and played it for him. Written by Neal Hefti, the music is clever, punchy and rhythmically complex. It took some practicing on my part to play the syncopated middle section.

Lloyd loved it. He announced that he wanted to learn to play it. Holy cow, Batman! He couldn’t play the piano at all. So I showed him one little bit at a time, hands separately. He was listening to it constantly, either played live by me – we didn’t have even a reel-to-reel tape recorder then – or on the TV.

Lloyd played the bits he knew for hours. As he was learning them, he would get frustrated and furious. When it all got to be too much, he would climb down from the piano bench and hop with rage. This was fascinating to watch because I had only read about people hopping with rage in the fairy tale, The King of the Golden River. I would think to myself, 'Well, I guess that’s the last of his wanting to play "Batman."' Yet a few minutes later, he would be at the piano again.

Eventually, he got the first and last parts down pat. I explained to him that the middle section was way more complicated rhythmically, but he was determined to get it all and, by golly, he did.

It occurs to me now that the principles behind Lloyd’s learning of "Batman" are the same ones that it’s taken me decades of piano teaching to define. The student listens to a piece and gets excited about it; he learns it bit by bit, with lots of help from a teacher who can break the process into small chunks.

When students come to lessons excited about wanting to play pieces that are miles beyond their current ability, those of us using Mastering The Piano say, “Great! You can learn it, taking as much time as you need, nibbling a few measures each week.” We know that children who are self-motivated can climb mountains and accomplish miracles.

The Lesson and the Gift

Dealing with a major illness has a way of consuming your life – physically and emotionally. With the relentless schedule of doctor’s appointments, medical tests and treatments, plus the tremendous frustration of physical limitations and overall discomfort, it’s easy to feel sorry for yourself, to spend too many hours in bed or just to give up. I found myself heading that way. Then one day while I was hooked up to a dialysis machine, one of my young students came to visit me. With wide eyes and obvious concern, she said, “You always know how to make me feel better, and I know you can do it for yourself.”

Her comment triggered one of those “Ah-ha!” moments, forcing me to look for something positive about my situation. It was a tough assignment. But that 9-year-old kid made me realize that from these otherwise unpleasant experiences, I learned a life-enhancing lesson and received a priceless gift. It’s been a long time coming, but fortunately, life’s a persistent teacher.

The lesson is to accept help from others gratefully and graciously and even to ask for it when needed. This isn’t easy for an independent person. I’ve prided myself on my ability to do things by myself and make it on my own – to be tough. So much for pride and self-sufficiency! They rapidly dissipated when suddenly I had to rely on family and friends for the simple requirements of daily living. As it turns out, allowing others to help me made them feel better, too. I know how satisfying it is to do something for someone else. Now, I know that to refuse help is to deny others that satisfaction.

The incredible gift that has come out of this is human connection. As word spread about my illness, the number of letters, emails, phone calls and visits I received was overwhelming. It’s been years since I’ve seen or heard from many who contacted me. All of them told me how I’d touched their lives in special ways. To hear and read such tributes is one of the most precious gifts a person can receive. It’s like being at your own memorial service while you’re alive to enjoy it! My father always said, “Send the flowers to people when they can smell them.” I am going to try to send “flowers of appreciation” much more often than I do.

Cracked Notes and Aussies

In crude terms, playing a piece of music on the piano requires the fingers to play the right notes in the right rhythm with the right dynamics. Sometimes the music goes very fast, so getting the fingers into position is tricky. Hitting two keys at once, called “cracked notes,” is a perpetual challenge for pianists. The fear of having cracked notes can make a performer so careful that all spontaneity and joy evaporate.

As a young student in England, I moaned to my teacher about the challenging leaps in a Bach Partita. His response was a scornful snort. Much as I would have liked a useful strategy from him, it wasn't forthcoming. Years later, I developed my own strategy as the result of meeting an Australian tennis champion.

On a trip to Australia in 1978, I took tennis lessons with a Davis Cup champion, Geoff Pollard. He said ten words that improved my tennis game and my piano performance: "Wait until you can read the writing on the ball."

Most people, explained the pro, have poor judgement about the distance of the tennis ball as it speeds towards them. They swing too early and miss. Instructed not to swing my racket until I could read the writing on the ball, I was confident. The writing is pretty big. The pro then lobbed a ball at me. Suddenly I realized that it was spinning around very fast and would be almost on my nose before being legible. In the last instant, I read the words and swung. To my complete astonishment, I hit the ball squarely with my racket and lobbed it back to the pro.

I've adapted this successful strategy for hitting a tennis ball accurately into one for hitting a key accurately: "Wait until you are over the centre of the key." The pianist is now really looking at, and focusing on, the position of the fingers.

How do you learn to find the centre of the key quickly enough to produce excellent accuracy, rhythm and dynamics in a dizzyingly fast piece? The practice solution is to separate the speed of getting the hand into position from the speed of depressing the key. I call this technique "practicing fast very slow." There are five steps.

Step 1. Play the key that occurs before you need to change hand position, using the appropriate amount of strength required for the dynamic you want, then STOP.
Step 2. Look for the key (or chord) that will be played next.
Step 3. Move the entire hand AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE to the new key but DO NOT PLAY IT.
Step 4. Look to see that the correct finger is over the center of the key to be played.
Step 5. Play the key with the appropriate dynamic level.

When you're comfortable and can play the notes correctly because you've practiced moving your hand quickly, speed up the tempo of the piece until it's at performance level. This strategy is very effective for reducing cracked notes to a minimum in any performance.

It also improves your tennis game.