You can imagine how self-important I felt on my drive to the nursing home yesterday afternoon. There I was, sacrificing my own day and my own plans with Natasha to go to the nursing home and play piano for the residents on Mothers Day. I thought, "Not many people will go to the nursing home today. They will be concerned with their own Mothers Day plans to go out for someone else's day. And those who do go are probably going out of a sense of duty. They probably haven't been there in awhile, but they're thinking they'd better go on Mothers Day if they go at all!"
Who knows if that's right, but I was certainly feeling good. I stopped off at my desk to pick up a book of piano preludes that I knew would be nice for the residents. I thought, "I'll bet no one plays extra music at these events. They're probably just like I would be any other day: show up, do my thing, leave." Not me, though, not yesterday. Oh, was I ever good!
And I played beautifully! I mean beautifully. It didn't matter that the piano was in ill repair and out of tune. It didn't matter that the sound was muddy, that the sostenuto pedal was broken, or that there was so much noise that no one could hear me anyway. It was good music.
That is, it was good until I got to "Blessed Assurance." I was told ahead of time that the nursing home had their own hymnals. And they do. They're the kind with no music, I discovered upon my arrival. "No matter," I thought. "I know these songs anyway." So, when the group wanted to sing "Blessed Assurance," I prepared myself to continue blessing these people with great music.
Then I drew a blank. "What key is that in again? Is it D or G?" Now, if you're not a musician, there's a BIG difference there. Something said, "D," inside me, but I second-guessed myself and started in G. It's a good thing that Ken is a strong tenor, or no one would've been singing a perfect fifth too high, as I was playing it! "Oh, no!" I thought. "This was beautiful up till now! Aargh!!!"
So I kept playing. Then it hit me. "Modulate!" I thought. So I did. With no warning to the singers whatsoever, I began modulating between the verses. And I kept modulating until we arrived at something somewhat singable. The only problem is that on that muddy piano, the modulations were unclear, and it wasn't until several bars into each verse that anyone knew I had actually modulated. Singers in one key, piano in another, and the leader of the whole thing singing an octave below whatever he could hear that was loudest. Oh, what a shlimazel! By the end of the song, even Bernie was looking at me as if to say, "Where on earth did you go? Mars?!"
I couldn't even look at the residents. Thankfully, the one closest to me was asleep and the one beside her was just so gracious and pleased to have people around that she just encouraged us all. I felt so ashamed. I arrived with this feeling of generosity and goodwill, then I derailed an otherwise lovely afternoon. The rest of the day was salvaged quite nicely by the leader of the day and the subsequent songs, the keys of which I didn't forget. Nevertheless, I left for home praying, "Oh, it's good to be humbled!"
LE
