Read Online Middle C by William H. Gass - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: William H. Gass
Ads: Link
you should feel the song in their tips—on the ball where the ink stain blues it—like a tingle. Your technique—oh God—is terrible. You need to do Czernys … and … and I don’t have any for you, not a page. I am a poor teacher. Naw. Nothing can be gained. I couldn’t sing or whistle them. They are not for copy, the Czernys. They are for the fingers like lifting weights. Which you either do, or you don’t do. Czernys. So you either get strong in the fingers or you remain weak … and if in the fingers, then in the head.
What Mr. Hirk hated most about Joey was his forearm. Do not move the forearm. Forget the forearm. From side to side from the wrist the fingers find their way, kneading the notes—your hands must be big slow spiders out for a walk.
Early on Mr. Hirk had grasped Joey’s hands with his voice. Show me your nails! Show me! They’re bitten! Look at them, poor babies. That is no way. Are you a beaver in a trap to be gnawing at yourself? Nails should never be long—short is wise—never so long they click on the keys, so they interfere with your stroke—no—but not bitten, a bad bad habit—they are not to be chewed like a straw. Nails are to be nurtured, nicened. Yes. Filed with your mother’s file. Not long like a lady’s but smooth, short, and smoothly rounded like the moon that is in them. That is the way. Remember. Short, round, smooth. Better if they’re polished like flute keys. Hooh, he would conclude, exhausted.
Dressing Debbie was getting expensive, and Miriam felt that Joey’s progress was being hampered by Mr. Hirk’s physical impediments. To the point of pointlessness, she thought. Joey looked forward now to his miniconcerts, but he could not protest his mother’s decision even if it was not adequately based or sincerely made. Joey was to inform Mr. Hirk on Saturday next that the present lesson was to be the final one. This, Joey had no desire to do. You hired him, you should fire him, he told his mother in the most aggrieved tone he could muster. It makes no sense for me to make a special trip just to do that, she answered in what would be her last reasonable voice. You send him his money by mail, Joey argued, why not end it the same way? That would be cold and unfeeling, she said sternly, that would be inconsiderate and impolite,even rude. Shame on you, she said. On me? Joey was unusual in his anger. Mr. Hirk is a sick old man! He has no income! He hasn’t even one Czerny. He lives mostly in the dark waiting for me to come and play. I give him that relief. This was said with pride. Now you want to take his single pupil and his only pleasure away. Joey was embarrassed by his own heat. Such novel opposition was quite beyond Miriam’s understanding. It made her furious. She blamed his poor upbringing on America. As someone who had been browbeaten, she could browbeat now with assurance, and she could be furious with Joey without worry because, though Joseph Skizzen was of the male sex, he was still a Joey. Ah, how you overcount yourself. How do you know what that man’s pleasures are! Joey’s stiff face told her that his certainties were unchanged. Then say nothing, just don’t go again, you obstacle, she shouted. Whatever you do, I won’t mail another fee. She ended the argument but not the issue by leaving the room in a huff that would have seemed more genuine if it hadn’t had wheels.
Joey knew now that the singers on Mr. Hirk’s old records were ghosts in truth, though he did not love them less for that. And Mr. Hirk had begun telling him of other singers, such as Marcella Sembrich, whom Joey had not heard, and how she had studied for years with an old piano teacher who discovered and developed her voice by taking her, willy-nilly, to the best teachers. Mr. Hirk was a bike tire turning in gravel—hard to understand—but Joey listened to his history of Marcella Sembrich as if she were a star of film, an actress of dangerous beauty. Indeed, Marcella Sembrich was her
What Mr. Hirk hated most about Joey was his forearm. Do not move the forearm. Forget the forearm. From side to side from the wrist the fingers find their way, kneading the notes—your hands must be big slow spiders out for a walk.
Early on Mr. Hirk had grasped Joey’s hands with his voice. Show me your nails! Show me! They’re bitten! Look at them, poor babies. That is no way. Are you a beaver in a trap to be gnawing at yourself? Nails should never be long—short is wise—never so long they click on the keys, so they interfere with your stroke—no—but not bitten, a bad bad habit—they are not to be chewed like a straw. Nails are to be nurtured, nicened. Yes. Filed with your mother’s file. Not long like a lady’s but smooth, short, and smoothly rounded like the moon that is in them. That is the way. Remember. Short, round, smooth. Better if they’re polished like flute keys. Hooh, he would conclude, exhausted.
Dressing Debbie was getting expensive, and Miriam felt that Joey’s progress was being hampered by Mr. Hirk’s physical impediments. To the point of pointlessness, she thought. Joey looked forward now to his miniconcerts, but he could not protest his mother’s decision even if it was not adequately based or sincerely made. Joey was to inform Mr. Hirk on Saturday next that the present lesson was to be the final one. This, Joey had no desire to do. You hired him, you should fire him, he told his mother in the most aggrieved tone he could muster. It makes no sense for me to make a special trip just to do that, she answered in what would be her last reasonable voice. You send him his money by mail, Joey argued, why not end it the same way? That would be cold and unfeeling, she said sternly, that would be inconsiderate and impolite,even rude. Shame on you, she said. On me? Joey was unusual in his anger. Mr. Hirk is a sick old man! He has no income! He hasn’t even one Czerny. He lives mostly in the dark waiting for me to come and play. I give him that relief. This was said with pride. Now you want to take his single pupil and his only pleasure away. Joey was embarrassed by his own heat. Such novel opposition was quite beyond Miriam’s understanding. It made her furious. She blamed his poor upbringing on America. As someone who had been browbeaten, she could browbeat now with assurance, and she could be furious with Joey without worry because, though Joseph Skizzen was of the male sex, he was still a Joey. Ah, how you overcount yourself. How do you know what that man’s pleasures are! Joey’s stiff face told her that his certainties were unchanged. Then say nothing, just don’t go again, you obstacle, she shouted. Whatever you do, I won’t mail another fee. She ended the argument but not the issue by leaving the room in a huff that would have seemed more genuine if it hadn’t had wheels.
Joey knew now that the singers on Mr. Hirk’s old records were ghosts in truth, though he did not love them less for that. And Mr. Hirk had begun telling him of other singers, such as Marcella Sembrich, whom Joey had not heard, and how she had studied for years with an old piano teacher who discovered and developed her voice by taking her, willy-nilly, to the best teachers. Mr. Hirk was a bike tire turning in gravel—hard to understand—but Joey listened to his history of Marcella Sembrich as if she were a star of film, an actress of dangerous beauty. Indeed, Marcella Sembrich was her
Similar Books
