My slightly unconventional path to a career as a pianist

Image from Wikimedia Commons

It's amazing how early on we get ideas in our head about how something is supposed to go.  In the classical music world, it seems to start with the familiar old joke, "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?"  Answer: "Practice, practice, practice."  And yes, practicing is definitely important but is the Carnegie Hall part?  As a kid, I believed that the infamous hall in New York City was indeed a necessary benchmark for any aspiring musician but pretty quickly the reality (or rather unreality) of that goal made itself pretty clear.  

This was one of the first changes in my path to becoming a musician.  I crossed Carnegie Hall off my list and frankly, sighed a sigh of relief. 

Next question I was told I needed to answer was what do I want to be?  A cellist or a pianist?  I struggled with this one for years and received plenty of bruises along the way from going back and forth, trying to make up my mind.  Before going to college I spent several years doing both but then quit piano in a very dramatic fashion, led mostly by the extremely stubborn side of myself - more about that in another post, perhaps.  I went to college as a cellist and it wasn't until the end of the first year that my cello teacher heard me play piano.  He inquired why I had quit and upon hearing my thoroughly asinine answer, signed me up for a piano audition to become a double major the next month.  With that audition, however, I hit upon a convention that at the time wasn't supposed to be broken.  The general consensus in the piano faculty was that they wouldn't teach me unless I quit the cello first.  Apparently it wasn't appropriate for anyone to double major in two performance areas.  Thanks to my stubborn side, however, I stated my argument for the president of the school who decided to compromise with me.  He said I could try it for one year.  After that, a decision had to be made.  After only a semester and a half of trying to practice two instruments at a music-school level, it became pretty obvious to me that I couldn't keep up both.  So making the decision early, I dropped cello and switched to piano. 

So there was the second change in direction.  

Once I was fully committed to being a pianist again, I found myself with the question of where did I went to end up as a pianist.  I didn't have to think very hard about this one.  I had always been addicted to chamber music and to accompanying others from the piano and because of my shyness, I knew that I didn't want to have a solo piano career.  So piano collaborating it was.  My new career choice.

For the rest of my undergraduate years as a piano performance major, I studied my solo repertoire half-heartedly but dove right into accompanying and collaborating.  I took Italian, I took French, I ate up the piano accompanying course, I took extra coachings from a fabulous collaborator, I went to summer festivals as an accompanist, worked in San Francisco and Switzerland as a vocal pianist at a restaurant, accompanied a church choir...I was so ready to be done with performance and move right into my graduate degrees in accompanying.

But wait! Not so fast.  Detour ahead.

In my senior year I contacted both of the accompanying mentors to initiate the obvious next step to me becoming a professional collaborator.  They both, individually, told me that they would not accept me into their program.  Jaw-dropping.  Crushing. I'm even feeling choked up thinking about it.  And this was coming from two completely separate people that I admired and worshipped with my whole being.  What was going on?  What did I do wrong?  They both expressed their belief that I should continue on as a piano performance major which further confused, upset, and intimidated me because in all honesty, solo piano freaked me out.  It took everything I had in me to get through my first performance degree and what did get me through was the carrot at the end of the stick - a chance to move on to an accompanying program.

Although I didn't understand any of it at the time, what choice did I have?  I couldn't even think straight enough to make another move so I opted to do what they suggested - I stayed in the piano performance program for the next two years.  I don't know how I made it through.  It was terrifying for me in so many ways because I was in a fairly competitive studio that was filled with solo pianists that knew that's what they wanted to do - I truly felt like an ugly duckling the entire time.  They ate up memorizing music, I got sick at the thought of it.  Their fingers flew up and down the keys in endless technical gymnastics, I struggled to get through the basics.  They entered competitions, I just wanted to go play chamber music.  In spite of this, my teacher stuck by my side, often making some exceptions for me to alleviate some of the pressure, and I did my best to buck up and to play the part of the solo pianist.  I barely made it, but I did.  And by then I had met my future husband, had gotten engaged, and decided that was the perfect excuse not to be rejected by accompanying programs yet again.

Looking back on it all, I still feel slightly sad about the whole thing.  And I can't say I understand what happened.  But I can honestly say that I am incredibly grateful now that I was pushed in that horribly uncomfortable direction.  Since becoming a wife and a mom and rediscovering my musical self, I am now able, thanks to my performance background and training to embrace the fourth change in perception that has come to me as a musician - I realize I don't have to be "an accompanist," "a collaborator," "a teacher," "a chamber musician," "a soloist."  I can be all those things and more with pride and skill and enjoy them all.  And I do.  I even enjoy the solo piano stuff now, with the exception of memorizing.

So back to that old joke..."How do you get to Carnegie Hall?"

My answer?  "Practice, practice, practice, then catch a cab and be ready for what might be a completely unexpected path to something or someplace even better!  And forget Carnegie Hall!!"

"TAXI!!!!"

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