Post 31: Earned Excellence

Despite her mandatory old-school dedication to music theory, work books, and the obligatory finger exercises, I somehow realized that theory and eye-hand coordination were part of the whole package: no repetitive Hannons, scales, and arpeggios meant no Chopin, Handel, and Liszt.

I trained with the dedication of an athlete, practicing daily. To my surprise, within two years, Mrs. Solenson declared me ready for the Virginia Music Association’s State Festival competition.

I was seven. There were a total of 220 competitors across seven age divisions. Forty-three of us in the seven-and-eight age group sat nervously in the Pre-Performance Room, soon to face more than 300 parents and teachers in the auditorium. There was an hour’s delay that day that had something to do with the sound system, and the extra sixty minutes only provided more time for my nerves to simmer.

When it was time for my group to perform, I pulled out my now-sweaty registration ticket and noted, for the tenth time in as many minutes, that I was playing twenty-third in our presentation class of forty-three. Mama, optimistic and encouraging, had said that it was a perfect slot: “You’ll get to hear the others warm up and then the judges will be ready for you. It’s just the right place for you to be.”

Mama would later tell me she had been scared that I would be outperformed by the others. While she loved hearing Beethoven wafting up from the basement while she and Daddy did dishes, she wondered if Mrs. Solenson hadn’t made a terrible mistake, setting me up for failure. Mama had seen me play football. She felt, and rightfully so, that I’d had my share of humiliation.

I played a piece by Mozart and, it turns out, I was good. Very good, in fact.  Mama had been worried for nothing. I won my age division. When the festival director coaxed me out on stage to receive my trophy, I was over the moon. Mrs. Solenson had never mentioned a trophy. It was an afternoon of happy surprises. My cousins David and Denton had shelves of sports trophies. Now, it seemed, it was my turn.

As the years passed, the intensity of my training increased. The Virginia Festival led to the Eastern Seaboard competition. These were not simply larger territories with changes of venue. Each division required consistent placement in the division below. In order to compete in the Eastern Seaboard division, a contestant had to gain a “Superior” rating at the state level for three years in a row. One slip to “Excellent” and you started over. This happened to me in year three of my state competitions, when I was hoping to jump to the National Division. A stray finger during the B-flat arpeggios and the resultant “Excellent” certificate set me back the requisite three years.

Despite feeling more let down than I had ever remembered, I hung in for three more years, earned three Superiors in a row, and took my place, at age thirteen, at the Nationals in Washington, D.C. (I look back and marvel that none of these festivals were held in Boise or Saint Louis or New Orleans, places Mama and Daddy simply couldn’t have afforded to send me. We had been fortunate: every venue had been within a long day’s drive.)

 In these competitions, not only were the stakes higher, but earning top scores required a higher level of mastery. Four months prior to the performances, each entrant was given the same ten pieces to memorize, all classical, all difficult. For each piece, you were expected to be able to execute four octaves of scales along with the inversions and arpeggios for that scale.

Once seated at a concert grand on a music hall stage in front of family and friends, teachers and competitors, you would be asked by the head judge to begin your first performance. The words came as calmly and casually as if he were asking you to pass the salt: “Mr. Carter, would you play the Brahms please?” Scales, arpeggios, and inversions finished, you waited. Once given the nod from the head judge, you played the specified piece. When you finished, the judges took a minute to confer, and then asked for their second random selection. You played, they conferred, and you were given a third and final selection. And then, as calmly as it started, it was over.

I prepared for everything. Practices and lessons were intense. If a festival happened in the spring, it was understood that I would miss almost every school field trip, science fair, theatre performance, and school dance. If in the fall, school pep rallies, homecoming parades, chorale tryouts, and yes, boy-girl parties were out.

It’s important to know that the discipline was self-imposed. Mama, and then later GranMag, intervened at a number of junctures and asked me sit out a year and “have some fun.” What I’d told no one was that I was seriously thinking of a performance career.

Mrs. Solenson had been warily optimistic but brutally honest about the work it would take. She made it painfully clear that few ever made a living as a virtuoso performer. She asked for a meeting with both Mama and Daddy in the fall before my National competition. She told them about my tentative plans, and the difficulty ahead, all with no guarantees. I think this was the first time they really understood how good I was and how serious I was about this piano business. I remember Daddy and I went for a walk to the creek that evening after dinner, and he asked only one question: “Are you sure, Drew?” I nodded yes. He put a hand on my shoulder, and it was settled.

The Nationals were to take place in Washington, D.C., exactly a week prior to my fourteenth birthday in May.  I was growing so quickly that the suit we had bought in January  was suddenly too small to alter. Mama waited until two weeks prior, and bought a suit only slightly too large. Then she loosely hemmed the trousers and coat sleeves so she could let them out at the last minute if needed. Aunt Cam sent me twenty dollars with a note that read, “Give ’em hell, Drew. Bring home first place. Nobody ever remembers who came in second. Ha. Ha.”

We drove to D.C. the day before the competition. Mama asked Mrs. Solenson to ride with us. Looking back, my teacher had to have been at least eighty, maybe eighty-five. She was tiring by the year, but stuck with me. This win was important to us both. The result would serve as either a green or a red light for my career as a classical pianist.

 After years of competition, I had begun to recognize the faces of others who, like me, were progressing through the ranks. While some of the parents (definitely not Mama) discouraged us from friendly conversation, inevitably, we got to know each other and how well each of us played.

The National Association rules insisted that, as participants, we were only competing with ourselves, working only to attain a “highly coveted level of excellence.” But as we got older, each of us knew differently. By varying degrees, we were being groomed or pushing ourselves for a place on the concert stage. Every year the music grew more difficult, the judges more discerning, and the pool of participants smaller but more accomplished.