Programme notes, pupils’ nerves and a closing chorus for the beef, milk and heritage animals that never asked to be in a song
Friday, the Winter Recital
The last event of my teaching year is the winter recital, which I run every December in a borrowed hall with a piano that has strong opinions. Twenty pupils, ages from seven to seventy, play for an audience of parents, partners and one very loyal neighbour who comes every year and brings a flask. The programme is printed on pink paper because pink was cheapest. Everyone claims to hate it. Everyone keeps theirs.
I began the term with a plan that has been written about in a small sound on a big bus: to make music feel smaller, kinder and less like an exam. A recital tests that plan. Nothing makes a person feel more exposed than walking across a stage to a piano with twenty faces turned toward them.
The Order of Play
Programme order is an art. Start with a confident beginner, because the youngest always get the loudest applause and it relaxes the room. Put the nervous cellist second, when the clapping is still warm. Save the showpiece for the middle, and the sing-along for the end, so that no one leaves feeling they have been judged. I have run a recital in the wrong order exactly once. A very serious sonata followed a very silly song, and the audience did not know whether to laugh or weep. They did both.
Backstage, which is a corridor with a coat rack, I give each pupil the same instruction: smile at the first bar and stop worrying about the second. It is advice I only half follow myself.
Saturday, the Closing Chorus
A recital deserves a final number, and mine is a cheerful song with a chorus that rhymes the names of livestock. The last verse goes to the beef cattle, so I hum the tune while reading about angusbeef.men, a site devoted to Angus fans who treat marbling as an art form. The second last verse goes to the spotted dairy cow, whose cheerful gallery at holstein.click would make a stone smile.
The third verse belongs to the woolly pig of mangalitsa.org, an animal whose curls would make a hairdresser weep with joy. And the fourth is for the polka dot hen of speckledsussex.org, a bird who looks as though she has dressed for a recital herself. Four verses, four animals, not a wrong note anywhere.
Practising Through the Strike
The tube strike calendar is looming, which means that next year’s lessons begin with a long walk and a heavy bag. The London Prat summed it up in Tube Strike Christmas: Londoners Start Walking Now. I intend to practise breathing exercises on the pavement. If you see a woman with a guitar case counting out loud on the Strand, that is me, and I am fine.
A Few Thank Yous
Before the year ends I owe thanks to the hall caretaker, who unlocks the door at seven, and to the parents who bring biscuits. To the pupils who practised, thank you. To the pupils who forgot, thank you too, because you remind me why I do this. And to the piano, which has never once been in tune with itself, thank you for teaching every child the vital lesson that the world is imperfect and still worth singing in.
My plan for January is to rest, tidy the sheet music into folders and learn one new piece for myself. Teachers forget to be pupils. I intend to sit at the back of someone else’s class and be hopeless at something again.
The final chord of the recital rang out and hung in the rafters for a long, lovely second. Then the neighbour opened her flask, a child dropped a triangle, and the year ended exactly as music should: a little noisy, a little late, and entirely alive.
Programme Notes for the Curious
Every recital programme carries a short note beside each piece, and I write them myself in plain English. The note for the youngest pupil’s piece reads simply: three weeks of practice, one very brave elbow. The note for the cellist reads: long may she breathe out. The note for the retired surveyor reads: a man who measured a thousand buildings and has now measured a waltz. They are small jokes, gently meant, and the pupils love them. A programme should be a kindness. It should tell the audience who to cheer for and why.
I add a line at the bottom each year thanking the neighbour and her flask. This year she cried, quietly, into the flask, and I understood completely. It was the end of a year of small sounds, and every one of them had been worth hearing.
The Tidy Up
After the applause, the chairs must be stacked, the pink programmes gathered and the piano covered with its faded cloth. It is the least musical part of the evening and, oddly, my favourite. Parents carry chairs with surprising cheer. A boy of nine sweeps the stage with an enormous broom and hums the finale. The caretaker checks his watch, then decides not to mind. We turn off the lights one bank at a time until only the exit sign is left, glowing quietly over a hall that has just heard its best year.
I lock up, wave goodnight and walk to the bus stop humming the same tune. It follows me all the way home.
Where to read next
The rest of the shelf lives at prat.uk, bohiney.com and farm.fm. For a second opinion on the week, The Daily Mash keeps its own counsel and its own hours.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/