Ms. Edie’s Second Annual Piano Students’ Spring Recital and Garden Party

Written June 2, 2003, at 4:30am

I have trouble settling down after a piano student recital.  Maybe if I held a normal recital, recovery would be easier, but I set a precedent back in January of 2001 when I held my first piano party, a concept that was received with considerably more student enthusiasm than the originally-proposed piano recital. 

Since then, the closest thing to a normal recital I’ve had is a piano recital and party. It seems to be built into my character to deliberately vary from the norm in practically everything I do, but at the moment (4:30 am), after having done it yet again and felt the inevitable disquiet afterward, I need an emotional outlet. 

And so it happens that I, still in turmoil from the events of the day before and unable to sleep, have packed up the laptop and headed for the garden house with a pot of coffee to enjoy the pre-dawn rain and write.   It’s only 48 degrees in here, but a little brown heater is softly whirring as it sits on the porcelain workspace of an old Hoosier cabinet a few feet from me.  (The cat is purring softly as she sits self-centeredly between it and me).  Thoughts and feelings rise to the surface as I pour the day’s first cup of coffee.

First, I should say that I do consider the recital to have been a success.   Several of my students played the best I’d ever heard them, everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves, and there was only one catastrophe.  (We may need to replace a ceiling).  It’s just that almost nothing happened as I had planned.

It began with the balloons.  I had decided to avoid last year’s last-minute dash to the party store for pre-filled helium balloons and the extra expense of having them coated.  (Coating the inside of the balloon with a sealant protects the children from disappointment if the store doesn’t wait until the appointed time to fill the balloons).  I could have simply eliminated the balloons, but I knew that would probably have resulted in pouting, tantrums, and other childish behavior (from my husband), so this year I opted for buying a helium canister and filling the balloons myself.

The people at the party store must be very smart.   When I went there to pick up the helium canister, advertised for sale at $5 off, I discovered they’d also put those big 500-yard spools of curling ribbon on sale for $.99 each.  Naturally, I needed one for every balloon color in my free package of 100 assorted that came with the helium canister.

Time was running short before the recital, so I cut several long pieces of each color ribbon and dashed inside to finish getting ready, leaving my husband to the task of filling the balloons and attaching them to the wrought iron railings that run the perimeter of our deck…

A few eager beavers arrived before things were quite ready, but that wasn’t unexpected, since I’d told them they could come early if they wanted an opportunity to run through their pieces before the performance.  I had been remembering how much I enjoyed the chaos last year as they divvied themselves up between my two pianos and took turns practicing.  I was looking forward to watching them create the same scene again this year.  That wasn’t what they did. 

The helium balloon-filling that was going on out on the deck was much more of a concern to them than their performances – which were, as it turned out, more than just a few minutes away. 

I had brought home a disposable canister that was supposed to fill 72 balloons, thinking it was a terrific money-saving idea for the next time around.  Wow!   Seventy-two balloons!!  That should be enough for at least three parties!!!  But that was before the kids found the bag of balloons and learned that if they ran to my husband, balloon and matching ribbon in hand, he’d happily fill their balloons until the tank ran dry.

You may notice from the title, “Ms. Edie’s Second…,”  that I’m still rather inexperienced at recitals.   Last year, I held the recital on a Friday afternoon and felt awfully inconsiderate when two parents had to take off work to attend.  This year, I scheduled it for a Sunday afternoon so all the parents could come, and specifically invited siblings.

  What I had not done was adequately visualize just how impressive a room with so many people all seated seriously, quietly, expectantly, around the piano would look.  There had been couches and chairs placed all around since the day before, but it suddenly looked so… important… with everyone in them that the unplanned words escaping my lips when I walked into the room were, “Oh my God.”

Watching my students’ happy excitement as they played to a roomful of people was truly a moving experience.  The first year I taught, none of them wanted to perform in a recital.  But they wanted to meet each other.  They asked questions such as, “How many students do you have?” and “What books are they in?” and “Are they further ahead than me?” and  “Am I the only boy?”  And then, of course, there was always,  “Am I the best?”  But no one wanted to be in a recital. 

The following fall, they still wanted no part of a recital, but at the end of the party, as they were waiting for their parents to retrieve them, they began playing for each other.  That spring, they not only wanted a recital, they wanted to know how many pieces they could play!  This year, they began asking in January (less than a month after the Christmas event) when they could have the next “recital.”

This spring, I told them that, as before, they could wear whatever they wanted and play whatever they pleased.   I would just put “Selections from [whatever method they are in]” in the program, and they could announce what they intended to play at the time.   (Of course, that only works if one has a very small studio and each student is at a different level or in a different method).  They played four, five, and six pieces, but that was not the surprise. 

First on the program was 8-year-old “Sweetheart.” (My students’ pictures and recordings are on my website, so they all have “handles” to protect their identities). “I’m going to be playing [this] and [that] and Sent-i-ment-al Journey,” she proudly announced.

What?  Sentimental Journey!  Where did that one come from?  As she played, I wanted to see the music, but no, she hadn’t brought it because, unlike the other selections from her lesson book, she had it memorized!  Would it have occurred to me to “teach” her to play it with the astonishing dynamics she used if she had brought it to me?  The thing that sticks is the realization that she probably played that simple little one-note-at-a-time piece with more imagination and freedom of spirit than I ever could have taught.

…Standing beside the imposing 7-foot Baldwin with its lid raised, “The Wonder,” also eight years old, announced her selections in her sweet, quiet voice. Then she proceeded to the bench, opened her book, and positioned her delicate hands above the keyboard.

“Mary,” one of the fathers (not hers) gently interrupted.  “I think you should remove the balloon first.”  Laughter as she untied it, and amazement as the rest of us realized we had not even noticed the ribbon on her wrist or the balloon above her head all the while.  Undaunted, she played with a delicacy and lightness to make one swear that balloon was still somehow attached.

…“The Performer” announced her pieces.  I’m going to play this [uh-huh], and this [Oh, yes, we worked hard on it], and that [Oh, my God!  I had completely forgotten that she wanted to play that as a duet!] and “Fur Elise.”  What? Another one I’ve not heard?  That one is two pieces ahead in her lesson book!

“I know,” she apologized afterward, when I told her how surprised I was to hear it.  “But I’ve always wanted to play it [she’s ten years old], and I learned it this week, and I really, really wanted to play it.”

“It’s okay.  You played beautifully,” I said, so proud of her progress, but beginning to wonder if any of my students really needed me at all.

We had a guest pianist.  My first student, who advanced to North Central College for lessons after being promised she could always return for “Ms. Edie’s” parties, played for us.  I had expected to feel honored and gratified, which I did, but the pang of regret caught me off guard.  I only teach introductory piano.  How much I would miss each of my students as they progressed beyond me had suddenly registered.

Finally, we had the party.  Wine, cheese, and hors d’oeuvres for the parents; a cake decorated with everyone’s name on it, root beer floats, and music games for the kids.  The problem with using unshortened names sprawled at artistic angles across the cake had not occurred to me.  My daughter is grown, and I had long since forgotten how important it is for children to get to eat the piece with their name on it.  Until they all asked for it.  Then, delighted with their strangely-shaped servings, they held them out to be splattered with ice cream, immediately obliterating the name that had been so carefully preserved ten seconds earlier.

I surprised them with boom-whackers.  They looked like so much fun in the catalogue.  Perhaps they were, if you were to ask the kids, but from an educational (or musical) standpoint, I found them disappointing.  Counting the Octavator Tube Caps, coordinating CDs, and guide books, almost $100 worth of “disappointing.” There’s also the time I spent making 3 x 5 color-coordinated cards to hang around everyone’s neck so I could keep track of who had chosen which note.  The boom box on the deck refused to work, so the accompaniment blared inaccessibly from the family room.  I learned that it is not an easy feat, orchestrating twelve musicians, each playing an instrument they’ve never seen, for music they’ve never heard, from a score they cannot see, to an accompaniment they cannot hear, all from within the confines of even the most generous attention span of a child.  Finally, I gave up “orchestrating,” and instructed them to just whack away!

We ran through our other piano party favorites quickly (because games that had been challenging at previous parties were now too easy), so I finished with prizes for everyone:  a twenty-five cent plastic bird warbler.  They were the undisputed smash hit of the party.

Those and the small white plastic tub of water I placed on the deck.  The warblers were new to them, so I proceeded to demonstrate their use.  (Am I that old?  Everyone had these when I was a child.)

I stooped down, dipped the warbler in the pan, filled it to the appropriate level, lifted it for all to see, and gave it to the three-year-old standing beside me.  Still bent over, hands bracing myself on my knees, I gazed into her face, about six inches from mine, and instructed her to blow.  She did.  Everyone was watching as she suddenly let loose with all her might, blowing all the water out through its beak and onto my face.  The “Oh no!” look on her father’s face, caught from the corner of my dampened eye, made me laugh.

Imagine the ensuing ruckus.  Twelve children running around in a wooded garden with bird whistles… up and down the deck stairs to refill their whistles… in and out of the house to refill the tub.  It kept them happy for nearly an hour… until suddenly, they all had to go to the bathroom…

Meanwhile, the adults were scattered in small groups out on the deck, on the patio, or out by the garden house, conversing obliviously above the hullabaloo.  I asked Bob, one of my piano student fathers, if he still had an interest in seeing the finished attic in my house.  This seemed as good a time as any to show it to him. 

He and I were making our way there when we happened upon Francine (neighbor and mother of six, three of whom were piano students) on her hands and knees in the powder room.  She was reaching around behind the toilet in obvious frustration while water flowed freely over the bowl, onto the floor, out of the door and into the hallway, and disappeared under the oriental carpet.  I noticed the air needed some freshener.

“I can’t turn it off!” she cried.  Apparently, she had been trying for quite a while. “Where is all the water going?” she asked, sounding frantic as Bob and I just stood there gaping.  “Who turned this thing off last?!” she demanded.  Now she sounded truly annoyed, as if she’d dealt with this sort of situation before.  I know I had, but this time Mr. Wrench-it-down-until-it-never-comes-loose was innocent.

“We’ve lived here for twenty years.  I don’t think it’s ever been turned off,” I answered, finally reacting to the situation by discarding the heavy ceramic lid and yanking up on the float to trick the toilet into thinking the reservoir was filled.

“Where is it all going?” She asked again.  I didn’t get what the panic was all about.  It didn’t seem like all that much water to me.  The carpet didn’t feel very wet.  (But I wasn’t about to let go of the float and let the flooding resume).  We were trying to figure out what to do when Bob, unflappable father of three girls, just rolled up his shirtsleeve, reached in there with his bare arm and removed the source of the problem:  an enormous wad of dirty, dripping toilet paper.

“This happens every year at Indian Princesses camp,” he said.  “One little girl decides she has to go to the bathroom, then they all have to go.  Each one goes, uses a bunch of paper and flushes the toilet, but they don’t wait for it to refill before the next one goes and flushes it again.  After about four girls, there’s not enough water to force the paper through, so it clogs and the toilet overflows.”

“Yes, I can certainly see that happening, now that I think about it,” I said.  “It’s nobody’s fault, just one of those little catastrophes that can happen whenever you get a bunch of kids together,” I said as I finished mopping up the surprisingly little amount of water from the floor.

Bob and I were about to recommence our trek to the attic when Francine asked for the third time, “But where did it all go?”

“What ‘all’?” I began to worry, realizing with awful dread that the impromptu parade to the bathroom had actually occurred quite some time ago.  “It probably ran between the floor boards through the suspended ceiling in the recreation room below, and down on to the carpet,” I grudgingly admitted.  “That’s what’s happened before when we’ve spilled water up here.”

[A subdued “Oh-oh” from Francine.]

“I suppose I had better go look,” I said, and Bob dutifully followed me down the stairs to the finished basement.  After a quick look around, I said, “Looks fine.  Let’s go!” reluctant to look hard enough to find the hidden disaster I was afraid might be there.

“Wait a minute,” Bob said.  “What’s that ‘rushing’ sound?”

“It sounds like water is running in the ceiling,” I answered, a little confused since I knew we had no pipes up there.

“It’s probably trapped and running along the metal rails that support the ceiling tiles,” my husband added, having now joined the party in the basement.

“I’ll look,” Bob volunteered, as he tried to remove one of the tiles.  He pushed at it several times from different directions, but it would not budge.

“You have to kind of shove it sideways,” my husband offered.  “No, wait while I get a chair.  I’ll try.”  But Bob, being about a foot taller than my husband, said he could reach it easily without a chair.  My husband seemed relieved to let him.

“They’re really heavy,” Bob said as he resumed his struggle with a different tile.  Suddenly it moved, and he was drenched.  [Big yellow stain on the carpet.]

“Well, at least now we know where all the water went,” I said.  “But that’s Berber carpeting.  It’ll wash.  And we have a few extra ceiling tiles.  We’ll just replace this one.  It could have been worse.” 

I turned to leave the room to get some towels from upstairs, expecting Bob and my husband to follow.  They didn’t.  Bob, whose head was closer to the ceiling than ours, continued to stand there and stare up at it.

“I still hear that sound,” he said, as he dislodged another tile, suffered a second deluge… and continued to hear the sound.  There were several more deluges.  All on Bob.  “Well, that’s got to be all of it,” we concluded confidently each time Bob removed another tile – until we heard more ‘rushing’. 

The problem was, there was just no way to lift a tile and then quick get out of the way before the water came down.  What a great sport Bob is!  Spent all afternoon at his daughters’ piano recital and topped it off with a fully-clothed shower of dirty toilet water in the basement.

That was pretty much the end of the party.  Let no one say it did not end with a splash.

…It’s now several weeks later, so I can tell you that as it turned out, there was no lasting damage to the floors, the carpets, the ceiling, the gardens, or me.  All physical evidence of the “recital” is gone.  But it wouldn’t matter if it weren’t.  Watching my students have so much fun was wonderful, and I would not trade that day for a “normal” recital for anything.  However, I’ve not had the courage to ask Bob his thoughts on the matter, and next time, we will have bathroom rules!