Ker-thump! Ker-thump! The same sound repeated over and over again with short breaks between percussions. The thump was loud enough to send a tremor through the floor. It reached out under the closed door to the music room, where Emily sat in the hall propped up with her legs sticking straight out in front of her. It was obvious when the professor was playing the piano instead of his pupil, but the murmur of words preceding each musical interlude was too low to understand. Sometimes the pupil’s playing would pause in the middle and then go back to the beginning. She tried to imagine what was happening behind the door. She’d never had a music lesson, but she would soon. She was afraid she wouldn’t be any good; wouldn’t be able to remember anything.
Ker-thump! There it went again. This one was softer, and accompanied by a lovely Mozartian flourish, first on the higher piano keys, and then down low, as if the professor was presenting the finale to an opera. Emily pulled her feet up instinctively and pushed herself to stand, sliding sideways against the wall. Just in time. The door swung open and Corey came tumbling out, flinging his arms over his head in a victory salute and crying out, “Ta-dah! Corey conquers!” Emily still had trouble translating the language of a six year old boy.
“What were you doing in there?” she hissed, grabbing her friend’s arm so he spun around in place.
“My music lesson,” he said.
“No you weren’t,” she announced, lifting her chin and folding her arms in front of her. “There wasn’t much playing, but lots of other stuff going on.”
“Ask Professor Haussmann if you don’t believe me,” he flung back over his shoulder. He turned and skipped off down the hall.
“I’ll tell your father, Corey de Koningh,” she called after him. “I will, too,” she muttered.
The door to the library stood open, just as Corey left it when he exploded out into the hall. Slipping through the opening with care not to announce her arrival, she moved across the thick carpet. Her shiny patent leather shoes were new, and the slick leather soles slid over the plush Turkish pile like a skater gliding on fresh ice. She hoped to surprise the professor so he’d have no time to make up an answer. Adults were good at bewildering children when they had the time to prepare.
She reached the side of the piano without being noticed. His straight back, formal suit, and red hair and beard reminded her of one of Corey’s lead Prussian soldiers marching in the playroom upstairs. But there was nothing cold about his blue eyes; especially when he played Bach for them on the piano, as he often did before Corey’s lessons.
“Good morning, Emily,” he said without looking up at her. He was packing up his sheet music and closing his briefcase with a snap of its brass lock. “What can I do for you?” he asked, looking around the top of the piano to make sure he’d taken everything. Emily was astounded by his ability to see her, apparently without having to look. Surprising the professor was not an easy task. It was a good thing he was friendly.
“Good morning, Professor.” She hoped she sounded as grownup and polite as he did. “I was just wondering something. Since I haven’t started piano lessons yet, there are some things I don’t understand.”
“Well I think that’s to be expected,” he said, looking down at her with his hands resting on his briefcase. “It’s nice you still have something to learn,” he added with a twinkle in his eye. “What do you want to know?”
“What was Corey doing in here with you, Professor? There was a lot of noise. It wasn’t really a music lesson at all, was it?” She forgot the question exposed her eavesdropping.
“Indeed it was, Emily. What kind of non-musical noise are you referring to?”
“Those thumps and bumps that shook the floor. It sounded like Corey was playing outside in the park instead of inside at the piano. What was he doing?”
“Jumping off the piano,” the professor said. He was still smiling calmly, as if he’d said ‘playing Beethoven’ instead. Emily’s eyes grew wide, and she ran her hand over the edge of the shiny black Steinway cover. She looked from it to the carpet below and back again.
“You let him do that?” she whispered. “Without punishment?”
“I asked him to do it,” the professor said, putting his hand on Emily’s head.
“Why? Couldn’t he get hurt, or mess up the furniture or something? And what does that have to do with a music lesson?”
“He’s practicing his jumps so he won’t be hurt. He got better and better as the lesson went on.” The professor picked up his briefcase.
“What does that have to do with Corey learning music?” Emily asked. Somewhere in this explanation there was a truth she was going to discover. She was stubborn. It might not be her turn for music lessons yet, but she would learn anyway.
“The same connections in the brain that control our muscles help us remember music,” the professor said, watching Emily for her reaction as carefully as she watched him.
“How do you know?” Her eyes narrowed as if to filter out grownup foolishness.
“Like most things; by experience,” he said. “When I was a teenager in Europe, I used to listen to certain concertos over and over with an obsession I couldn’t overcome. I’d do my woodwork with them blasting on the record player. My father always said, ‘don’t do that. You can’t concentrate that way’; but I found my hands and focus on the wood were more sure, and I never forgot the sequences of the concerto either.” He smiled down at her and started to move away from behind the piano bench. “It’s the same process you use to program your muscles to ice skate or learn a dance step; or jump off the piano, for that matter.” He put his hand on her shoulder and started to move her out of the room with him. She knew he had other lessons to teach and places to go.
“But why did he stop half-way through before he finally finished each piece?” she asked.
“Because it’s about the sequences in order, just the way your muscles have to work. You have to play the whole thing from the beginning in order to remember what comes next. We talked about that when he was learning how to jump, too.”
“So it’s just as important to learn how to jump off a piano as it is to play on it?” Emily asked, still unsure of the professor’s motivation. She knew adults couldn’t always be trusted.
“A little help from the system that lifts your jump off it can help you play on it; yes,” the professor assured her.
Emily stopped and looked back at the piano as the professor left the room. She spread her arms out wide from her sides, and pushing off with her toe, she spun around twice in place. Her hair and skirt whipped about her as if she was pirouetting on ice. She had a lot of practicing to do before her first music lesson.
By Sidney S. Stark