Scale(s)

One little word, such a variety of meanings: scale gets nearly a whole page to itself in the Concise Oxford Dictionary. Already this week my fellow bloggers in some fascinating posts have touched on most of those meanings in their various manifestations. I think "mineral deposit" as in limescale or plaque was the significant omission, but I'm steering well clear of teeth (which makes sense if you've read my recent Love Bites blog).

Instead, a brief - and I hope entertaining - take on musical scales; more precisely, my learning to play the piano and some whimsical riffing thereon.

My mother owned the piano, inherited from a parent, I suppose. It stood in our front room (the one saved for best) and I was allowed to play around on it as a child, initially picking out tunes with one or two fingers. I must have shown some aptitude and a modicum of interest, because from age eight or so I was dispatched on Saturday mornings to take piano lessons from white-haired Miss Holland. She seemed ancient (but was probably younger than I am now), had possibly been a teacher, and she called the instrument by its posh name (pronounced P-R-NO, don't you know). 

We started with scales. I was very good at scales apparently. It also turned out I had perfect pitch, for when on one occasion I told Miss Holland a couple of the keys didn't sound precisely right, she was impressed I'd noticed and said the P-R-NO tuner was coming that afternoon to rectify them.

Musical theory wasn't too difficult, simple playing exercises were a breeze, but once we moved on to 'proper' pieces, my tendency to play-by-ear (i.e. from memorising the pieces) rather than by sight-reading  became a bone of contention. That and my reluctance to practice as diligently as I should. 

I don't know at what point it hit home that I was doing this more to please my parents than to please myself. I think I'd sat and passed my Grade I exam before the real resistance kicked in. By the time I was ten, I was envying my mates who could go and play football at the rec (our nearby park) all day on Saturdays but I only got to join them in the afternoons. Plus there were girls to think about and then the Beatles arrived on the scene and playing a guitar seemed way more exciting a prospect than playing the P-R-NO, except I didn't have a guitar nor the funds to buy one. However, I distinctly remember that on getting my Grade II certificate, I scrumpled it up into a ball and threw it away in an act of defiance.

Those weekly lessons with Miss Holland limped on for a few more half-hearted months as my parents had paid for a term in advance, but even they realised my heart wasn't in the enterprise. When I transitioned to senior school in the summer I turned eleven, the piano lessons never resumed. I don't regret abandoning them. It was the right thing to do. I don't think it was money wasted either because I acquired the rudiments of a musical education that has proved quite useful from time to time. 😎

the piano house

This evening, Adele and I are off to Manchester - a first live gig for me since 2019 - to see The Coral playing at Albert Hall, my favourite Manchester music venue, and a beautiful Grade II listed building as it happens. They arrived on the scene just shy of my 50th year, instantly becoming my new favourite band, and I incorporated a song ("Dreaming Of You") from their debut LP into our DeadBeats' live set. In terms of scale, they have soundtracked the most recent two decades of my life in much the same way as The Beatles (that other Merseyside phenomenon) soundtracked my teenage years. This is The Coral's 20th Anniversary Tour and I'm very much looking forward to it.

 

To play us out, so to speak, a new poem-in-progress (this is the first take, but there's bound to be a re-working as I tinker with getting the execution to better support the idea), plus another musical bonus.

Grade II Listed

Soft as gypsum, rhythmic fingers

stroke a rolling pattern below stairs,

reverberations in the bedrock both

muted and sinister, an underpinning

often overlooked, stocky like suet, 

dependable as clean shoes, perfect 

boiled eggs, spotless hearths, almost

ghostlike in metronomic servitude,

powering this house as yesterday

or tomorrow behind grilled windows,

stately through measured passages,

discreet both in entrance and exit,

playing its base part learned well.

On the other hand, atop this structure

a dextrous and carefree fantasy

extemporises, chiming with brio,

sprinkled with silver top notes and

hints of chintz, ringed with diamonds

and dalliance in the salon. Even in

wintertime the living is easy, light

touches everywhere, Rule Britannia

still hanging in the air like a row 

of rich pearls, beds turned neatly,

baths pulled ready, clustered chords

echoing behind a neo-classical facade

sounding hollow as any cheap pianola.

Here's a link to another standout cut from The Coral's 2002 debut LP: Calendars and Clocks  Enjoy.

Thanks for reading, S ;-)

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