Only the Good Die Young

Chapter 9

The room empties as students pack up their instruments and begin their journey home. Even Mr. McKinnon leaves, telling us to be sure to lock the door after we've gone. Only Kyle and I remain. He stands at his amplifier, I sit at the piano bench, humiliated.           

"Okay," says Kyle. "Happy Birthday. It's really simple. We'll do it in G." Kyle plucks the lowest string of his guitar, then each one above it, adjusting the pegs on the guitar's neck as he goes. When he's finished he strums them all.

The pride of eight years of piano lessons swells in my chest. I can't believe I didn't know how to play that song.

"I'm just trying to help, Rebecca. It's not that hard. It's just a 1 – 5 – 1 – 4 – 1 – 5 – 1."

"What are you talking about? That sounds like a phone number."

"Look, it's easy," he says. He strums three notes, one at a time. "The song is in the key of G and the chords are G, D, and C. If you number the chords, the sequence of numbers is the song."

The only numbers that relate to music are ones that indicate bar lines, beats or fingerings. "Is this a guitar thing?" I ask, glancing at his amplifier.

"Are you serious? It's an everything-thing."

"I think you're making this up," I say. "This isn't math."

"Really?  This is basic stuff, Rebecca."

"Basics are things like memorizing Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge for note names on the treble clef."

Kyle is exasperated. "These are other basics. Just – listen."

A hodgepodge of wild, random tones fills the cloakroom as his fingers fly over his fret board. Kyle bends notes and distorts others, but I wouldn't call it music.

"What was that?" I say, irritated at the assault on my hearing. 

Kyle grins. "Pay attention this time." He starts up again. I fight the urge to plug my ears when a simple motif strikes me.

Underneath Kyle's frantic trills, turns, bends, distortion and wild glissandos is the unmistakable melody that I couldn't play for the life of me. My stomach feels like it's being sucked down a drain. He ends with a wild flourish.

"What did you just play?" I say, dumbstruck, even though I know the answer.

"Happy Birthday," he says. "I spiced it up a little, though."

"But you didn't have any music to read."

"I made it up as I went."

My mind flickers to my piano teacher and her living room. Mrs. Whitestone's and the elegant mahogany table next to a sofa with pastel violet and emerald flower petals, an antique clock and its roman numerals hanging over a burgundy brick fireplace. The black upright Baldwin that set next to a collection of miniature pianos on a shelf by her front door. Organs, grands, even a harpsichord, carved out of glass, metal and wood. Matching benches, closeable lids and hand-painted keys.

I spent hours in that room. Mom spent a small fortune on lessons.

My body sags.

"Give me another key to work in," says Kyle. "Any key."

"F sharp," I say, instantly. It's considered by many classical pianists to be the hardest key to play in.

"No problem."

He adjusts his hand on his guitar and plays Happy Birthday again, but this time every note of the song is now a half-tone lower. If he were playing this on the piano, he would have replaced every white key with the black key under it.

What Kyle is doing is called transposition. I've done exercises and taken tests on it, but always at a desk with a pencil. It's an agonizingly slow and tedious process. Imagine reading aloud an article in the newspaper about the colors of the rainbow, but saying the word "red" any time you read the word "yellow," and "green" whenever you see "blue." Now do this with every colour you see and read the entire article through on the first try without stopping or making a mistake. It's a mathematical nightmare but Kyle can transpose in his head.

Each April for the past eight years I lined the hallway of a local hotel with dozens of other students as we waited to play our examinations for visiting adjudicators. I practiced for hours after school, some days before breakfast. I studied key signatures and time signatures. I agonized over scales I was instructed to play in two directions at once. I memorized arpeggios and triads. I sang intervals. I wore dresses and stockings and polished my shoes.

Kyle Foster is about a million times better at his instrument than I'm at mine, and he's had no formal lessons.

I don't know if I want to cry or scream.

Kyle reads my mind. "Don't feel bad, Rebecca. There are thousands of people like you who think they've studied music when they've really studied...well, I don't know what to call it."

I press my fingertips into my temples. This can't be happening.

"You did your exams on paper, right?" asks Kyle. He starts effortlessly playing a blues tune that is so elaborate he could win a Grammy. He's not even looking at his hands. "And you did theory and stuff?"

I spent hours in my bedroom with a textbook and a sheaf of blank manuscript paper and a pencil. "I never got anything less than First Class Honours in any of my exams," I say, weakly.

"Yeah, but that's like saying studying biology is like studying medicine. Just because you know how a cell divides doesn't mean you could set a broken arm."

I extend my fingers and look at my shaking hands. I used to be proud of how strong they were, how practiced, how educated. Now they seem amateurish and ignorant.

Kyle stops playing. "Most people who take piano lessons have nothing to show for it at the end, and then they get frustrated and quit. Sure, they can play a few classical pieces but that's pretty much it. It's like learning to read but only being able to understand a few novels."

"I've taken piano lessons for eight years." I feel so cheated I almost shout. "I did everything I was told to do. I was my teacher's best student!"

            Kyle looks worried. "I didn't mean to upset you. I thought this would help."

            I have to get out of here.

            "Sorry, Kyle," I say. "I need to go."

            I grab my folder and head for the door. Kyle hurriedly packs up his gear and follows. A sight in the hallway gives me chills.

            I thought that Happy Birthday would be the worst thing that could happen to me today. I was wrong.