When I was a little girl, I used to lie in my bed at night and listen to the music coming from the living room, where my brother practiced piano into the late hours. Chopin etudes and Mozart sonatas were my lullabies every evening. I didn't know just how lucky I was to grow up in a household filled with music.
Occasionally, I would tiptoe into the living room and stand in the doorway, watching my brother hard at work. He was usually so involved in the music that he wouldn't notice I was there - I didn't mind. I loved watching his fingers glide over the keyboard and occasionally would catch a glimpse of his face. He always looked so earnest, and beads of sweat would rundown his face. The music enveloped and utterly absorbed him.
What I found most remarkable about his playing was his patience. He could work on one piece for hours and hours on end. Sometimes it could take him hours to hammer out a mistake he had made on a couple of measures. He always persevered, however, and would play that measure as many times as he had to until he got it right.
I tried my hand at the piano when I was younger, but found rather quickly that it was not my forte. As a little kid, I found it hard to tie myself down to the piano and spend the many hours necessary to be considered decent. I went through a couple of teachers. Finally, I found one that actually inspired me. She was the wife of my brother's piano teacher, but went by her own name, Roberta Rust. I enjoyed going to her house every week and would get excited when she would stick a gold star on my music for extraordinary interpretation of "Row, Row, Row Your Boat," or "Three Blind Mice."
I imagined myself as the next Horowitz. My brother and I could be a duo. We would storm the concert halls of Europe and stun the world. People would line up around the block so that they could get tickets to our shows. We'd be the Brother and Sister Damast piano duo.
I had actually disciplined myself to sit down at the piano at least three or four times a week. Then tragedy struck. After about six months, Ms. Rust had the audacity to move to Florida. It was the end of the pretty gold stars. I half-heartedly played my scales for her that last lesson as she recommended another teacher for me, a lady named Ms. Chung. My head drooped as I reluctantly agreed to give this new teacher a shot.
Our first few lessons were disasters. Ms. Chung was not only boring, but completely lacked enthusiasm. There were not only no stickers but no encouragement. All of a sudden, playing the piano became work for me - work that I no longer enjoyed. My piano career ended almost as quickly as it had begun.
It was probably around then that I started to seriously turn to singing. Singing was something that came naturally to me. From the time I was a baby, I had been wailing along with the Karen Carpenter records my mother played for me. After my failed piano career, my father bought me a book of Karen Carpenter's songs. I would plunk out on the piano such favorites as "There's a Kind of Hush," "Mr. Postman," and "Top of the World."
My dad bought a microphone and an amplifier and started bugging my brother to accompany me on these songs. He would drag my mom into the room, hand me the mic, and make us give them a mini concert. They were without a doubt our most enthusiastic audience. My father had visions of us being the next Karen and Richard Carpenter.
Pretty soon, I started expanding my repertoire. Growing up, I was a child of Broadway. My Grandpa would take my family out to Broadway shows every couple of months. The first musical we went to was Me and My Girl. I remember watching the show with dreamy eyes, wanting to be right up there on stage with the other actors singing the "Lambeth Walk."
For days after the show, I would walk around trying to perfect my cockney accent. Of course, my father bought the songbook. My brother would reluctantly stop practicing Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata so that I could belt out the melancholy tune Sally sang in the show, "Where Do Lonely Hearts Go."
I took the mike, batted my eyelashes, and dramatically strutted around the room. I would usually end up leaning against the piano with a dramatic expression on my face, having attempted to embody the pathos and gut-wrenching heartache that Sally was feeling. I would hold the dramatic expression on my face until after my brother was done playing piano, and then gracefully curtsy around the room. "Thank you, thank you so much dahllllingggsss." I imagined they were throwing roses at me. "Encore," shouted my father.
Having a professional pianist in the house was a dream come true for an aspiring singer. I would constantly interrupt my brother and make him play Les Miserables or Phantom for me. But, he didn't want to be my full-time accompanist, and it became harder and harder for me to convince him to play along. After lots of persuading, whining - and occasional promises of ice cream - he would usually concede.
As we got older, my father's dreams of our becoming the next Carpenter team slowly faded. As happens with all brothers and sisters, we grew up and started doing our own thing. Our time together in front of the piano became less and less frequent as we got absorbed in the dilly-dally of daily life. He became more absorbed in serious study of the piano, and I started studying classical voice. My voice teacher played piano, so I didn't have to beg my brother anymore to play along with me.
I didn't realize how much I missed it until my brother went away to college. All of a sudden, the house felt immense and empty. All of a sudden, my brother wasn't there and I couldn't even bug him to accompany me on the latest song I was working on for my voice lessons. I had to switch the radio on to WQXR, the classical music station, every evening, so I could fall asleep to some sonata or other.
I think we both realized that something was missing from our lives. Once our rendezvous in front of the piano stopped, we felt estranged. Music had always been something that had brought us closer and had been one of the vital forces uniting us since we were little kids.
Whenever we are home, we make an effort to spend a few hours making music together. For just a few moments, we can pretend we're following in the footsteps of Karen and Richard Carpenter. And I don't have to switch on the radio at night because I have the real McCoy. Guaranteed, at three in the morning, I'll hear the sweet strains of Mozart slowly but surely creeping their way into my dreams.
