Piano lessons – wrong game | nd-aktuell.de

When I was a little Jewish boy, I had a post -Soviet piano teacher. Actually, only the time was now post -sovietic, but she was still a Soviet piano teacher: her methods were Soviet, her voice was Soviet, her fingers and hands were Soviet, her skin, her clothes and her pocket and her bookshelf with it Content and of course their classic chipboard – all of that was Soviet.

It was not entirely clear to the mandarins that attracted rasping in a bowl and fertile flying whether they were already post -soviet or Soviet. In any case, her piano was Soviet, on the piano there was a Soviet dust, a Soviet ruler on the dust, and with this ruler she pressed me down to the keyboard in a Soviet way because, as she said, I should play “with the whole body” .

Since I was far -sighted, the keyboard began to blur in these moments – and the less I saw the deeper I had to hold. Nevertheless, I realized once, curved over the keys, like a fruit fly between E and F forever disappeared. Since then I have feared that my Soviet teacher could bend so deeply that I drowned in this blank keyboard, sink into her like a fruit fly.

After all, I was happy if she used the ruler only for this purpose, otherwise she would like to hit the beat at the same time – and on my fingers. At first I suspected that she wanted to do the fruit flies, which could have explained why one of them chose the voluntary exile inside the keyboard. Only later did I understand that my teacher always knocked my fingers on my fingers, when I played too slowly. And I always played too slowly when it came to her – unless I played too quickly. Since she also used her ruler as a fingerfall in these cases, I never really knew whether I played too quickly or too slowly. At least there was so much: I played wrong.

“What should I do?” I asked with a pleading voice. “You should play better,” was always the exhaustive answer, and if I dared to ask myself further, I heard puzzling oracle sayings like “Fleischiger!”, “It must be oily!” Or “You should sing on the piano!” : “You should make more effort.” Only when she had a particularly friendly day that could by no means be seen that she added to the mitarine: “Take a mandarin.”

That was special. In terms of care, it was also expressed in what changes my Soviet piano teacher came up with so that practice would not be boring. Everything that somehow prevented me was – for whatever reason – right. Soon I should play with crossed arms, soon she placed a coin on my back of my hand that was not allowed to fall, and even if I succeeded in exceptional cases, I couldn’t keep it – the coin. I already kept my Soviet piano teacher.

But since I kept them, she connected my eyes so that the movements were better imprinted while I was grinding the Etudes. And in the meantime I put it with it and played, I put myself in a fruit fly, staggered over the Soviet chipboard, crawled over the white Soviet crochet to the Soviet crystal glass bowl, nibbled to strengthen me before the upcoming effort, a little on the rotten tons And flew through the Soviet windows into the post -soviet world, as a Jewish piano refugee to the west, while my piano teacher, in advance with the ruler, wrote after: “You should fly better!”

The author of the pianist Evgeniya Kleyn thanks the idea for this text.