Black Dots

Last night I accompanied a COC friend, Matt Rizer, in a performance of mostly obscure Broadway tunes. We had been preparing for about two months to give this recital.

Some of the pieces he chose were just a joy to play—they seemed to roll off my fingers through the keys to present utter beauty. Some were far more challenging, either in just not resonating within me, or in having just too many black dots on the page.

My favorite type of accompaniment is for a singer who grabs a tune and flies with it, secure in herself and knowing that—wherever she goes and whatever she does with the tune—I'm right there underneath her, making her flights of fantasy possible. (I've had great experiences that fit this definition with my dear friends LaVerne Davis Lawrence in Tucson and Judy Sokol, an ex-Washingtonian now living in Sarasota.)

Last night's repertoire, in contrast, had a number of song versions that, due to their complex arrangements, were designed to be played note for note.

Think for a moment about the nature of accompanying. The pianist is focusing on the notes printed on the pages, but also on moving those notes to the keys without error; on never overpowering the soloist (or performers); on splitting sight between the keys, the music, and the soloist; on dealing with lighting (is there enough light to see, are there lights flickering that disrupt my vision); on tempo and volume and being on the right page; and on staying focused despite a hundred variables in the environment.

Two pieces were problematic for me last night. The first was "Putting It Together," from "Sunday in the Park With George," which opened the second half. The lyrics involve the million facets of bringing a piece of art—whether song or sculpture—from idea to fruition, to being seen or heard by the public. It's a "patter" song: lots of words, lots of repetition. There is not much variation from verse to verse, i.e., it's easy for either the singer or the accompanist to get lost. And it moves lickety-split. The speed of light. No room for error.

We rehearsed and rehearsed this piece. [At Matt's brilliant suggestion,] I copied and cut-and-pasted the music so there would be no page back-turns for repeats. It was just 20-or-so pages, one after the other. We had agreed that if either of us got lost, we'd just pick it up and keep going.

And I got lost. Even with a page-turner who had his eyes glued to the music to keep me on track, I got lost. And we just stopped. Matt looked over at me and I just laughed out loud at the impossibility of it all. In front of the audience, I just laughed. Really, what else could I do? He turned back to his "teleprompter," grabbed a lyric, and took off again. Then on the last page, we somehow got separated again. A phrase that was to be duplicated in the voice and the accompaniment somehow got played by me and then sung a Capella by him. Oops. But we started and finished together. Does that count?

[When I laughed (really, how unprofessional can one pianist be?!), all I could think of was the fact that Matt was recording the performance and I had just seriously messed up the recording.]

The second problem child was "You'll Never Walk Alone." Matt had chosen the Streisand version, which includes a number of key changes throughout. Umm, some of these new keys have no reference point to the previous key. I've been playing this song in various versions since I was about 10 years old. I would have loved to have just taken off and done my own underlayment, but with this awkward arrangement (which on the recording has a number of back-up singers and an entire orchestra) I needed to stick to the ink on the page. I flubbed a few notes on each of the key changes, but Matt kept his pitch, kept going, and we finished together. Bravo to him!

Now here's the question for the ages: Let's say I played 10,000 notes perfectly, 1,000 notes acceptably, and 100 notes poorly or not at all. Why, for days afterward, will I only remember the 100 notes?!

Matt had already chosen most of his repertoire before asking me to accompany him (without ever having heard me play, I might add — without knowing I have a gift for accompaniment). Now that he knows what I can do, maybe next time he'll be able to choose tunes he loves rather than arrangements he loves, and enable us to just create something wonderful between us.

[I am not saying there was not a whole lotta wonderful going on last night. There absolutely was. But I felt somewhat constrained by all that ink. I would rather have followed the neurons than the dots.]

The grace of last night was that the room was filled with friends. We were on the floor of a lovely church hall, rather than on a stage. I could laugh out loud when I messed up, partially because over half of the audience members were also musicians and had dropped their own black dots from the music to the floor at various times.

We set a goal. We worked our vocal chords and our fingers and our brains. We achieved our goal—quite beautifully, if I may say so myself.

We started together. We ended together.

And my musical life goes on. In five hours, I've got to be back on stage again, performing a whole 'nother set of black dots for five talented young opera singers.

Here's hoping I won't (very unprofessionally) laugh out loud. Or need to.