by Barbara Kreader, Editor
crumpled up Frances Clark's judging comments,
carefully placed them in an ashtray, and set fire to them. The year was 1963; the place was the bathroom near the
main ballroom of Chicago's Sherman House Hotel. The event was the Central
Division Auditions of the National MTNA Piano Competition.
This story actually starts a few months earlier
on the bright November day I first met Fernando Laires. With my scores of
Bach's Italian Concerto, Beethoven's "Waldstein" Sonata, and Ravel's
Sonatine under my arm, I marched across the leaf-strewn lawn of Lincoln,
Nebraska's Union College campus to the appointed red-brick building.
At 16, I was a veteran of many MTNA state auditions. My consistently high marks were always accompanied by comments such as "extremely musical" and "fluid technique." Yet I was definitely hanging out in my "shows much promise" period and didn't expect to win anything.
Then I encountered Dr. Laires's soulful brown eyes and warm handshake. He stood up to meet me, commented on his eagerness to hear such fine music, sat down, and gazed expectantly in my direction. I felt slightly dizzy, not only because I was nervous, but also because I could feel a crush coming over me. Given the rush of his powerful male energy, I played the heck out of all three compositions, leaving even me amazed at the results. He awarded me first prize-Nebraska State Winner of the Central Division.
My teacher had expected another of her students to win-a gifted young girl who consistently practiced long hours, could play scales and arpeggios at breakneck speeds, and already understood the intricacies of counterpoint. Due to my many interests, I practiced in fair-weather spurts and attended theory class only when I knew the boy I liked would be there. My teacher sounded slightly panicky when I told her I had won.
The next afternoon a recital took place to showcase the first through third place winners in the piano and strings categories. With Dr. Laires in attendance, I felt the pressure to affirm his choice of me over the other student, who had placed second. During the "Waldstein," the bridge to the recapitulation broke, causing a flood of wrong notes to cascade through my fingers. I sneaked out of the recital hall, certain that I had ruined Dr. Laires's belief in me and fearful of the Chicago auditions that lay ahead.
Enter Frances Clark. After four months of intense preparation, I traveled with my father to the National MTNA Convention in Chicago. On the appointed day I crawled up onto the ballroom stage under the watchful eyes of the three judges who sat in attendance on a bench nearby. I barely noticed the two men; to this day, I have no idea who they were. My eyes fell immediately upon the dignified woman with the carefully coifed hair whose deep voice intoned, "Please, you may begin."
The Bach felt sketchy. My fingers hovered indecisively above the keys; my breath lay trapped in my belly. The Beethoven flew by in a blur. I rushed across the repaired bridge, relieved to find it holding up after the long months of repetitive reinforcements. The Ravel soared and then crashed somewhere near the tricky coda, when a momentary brain cramp caused me to wander the music off into an unrelated key. My face burning, I returned to my seat and to what was certain defeat.
It was. The other judges passed their sheets to a monitor, who delivered them to the contestants. I quickly read the same old thing: musical, shows promise, and so on. Frances Clark delivered her comments in person. When she reached me, she handed me the paper bearing her high-lettered, firm handwriting, and said, " Do you actually know what notes are on the page?" She moved on the next person.
I was furious! What was she talking about? I had practiced those pieces for months. Reading her comments, I became even more incensed. Questions filled the page. "Do you know what scale occurs at measure 12?" "Do you know what pedaling other editions of this piece use during the coda?" "Have you considered how the form of this piece affects the interpretation?"
Being young and arrogant and defeated, I could only think to destroy what I didn't want to hear. How could someone focus on such banal particulars at a time when I was supposed to be pouring out the music of the spheres? I just didn't have enough talent, that was all. The afternoon with Fernando Laires had been a fluke. I burned the evidence of this face-destroying event, went home to Lincoln, and quit piano.
Frances Clark was to reappear in my life. The summer after my MTNA debacle, I visited my cousins in the western part of the state. One of them was studying piano with Chip and Bobo. Recognizing Frances Clark's name on the cover of the books, I leafed aimlessly through these examples of the Frances Clark Library, reading about intervals, doing some of the exercises that pointed out musical patterns and forms. I had studied theory for years and could write four-part harmony, yet I found myself seeing the magic of musical notation for the first time.
Coming upon a little piece called Sobersides, I followed the directions for transposing it by intervals and spent a euphoric afternoon playing this piece in 24 keys. Maybe I should have kept Ms. Clark's observations. Maybe I simply needed to "know what notes were on the page." My excitement about music and the possibility that I might have a place in its world resurrected itself. I returned to lessons.
It took several more years of serious, but unfocused study before I once again encountered Frances Clark. While reviewing every piano method known to humanity in Frances Larimer's graduate pedagogy class at Northwestern University, I again noticed the clarity and originality of what had now become The Music Tree.
I began teaching in the university's preparatory department, which used this revolutionary series. Little did my students know that as I introduced them to the mysteries of music, my own concepts of reading and counting were undergoing quiet transformations. Because the books were riddled with questions, I found myself teaching in the same manner. "Do you know what note Jon George uses throughout throughout the left-hand of this piece?" Ten years after meeting Frances Clark in Chicago, I was beginning to understand what she was saying that day.
I met Frances Clark a second time in 1982. As the Editor of Clavier, I spoke monthly with both her and Louise Goss about the Questions and Answers column. Begun in Etude magazine by her mentor, Guy Maier, Frances continued the column in Clavier. It became one of the magazine's most popular features.
It became very clear to me that Frances knew every word that was on her page. She never missed a deadline and sent letter- and grammar-perfect copy filled with the common sense and cogent insight unique to her. During the six years of my tenure at Clavier, I grew to know the side of Frances Clark that brought the rigors of philosophy, literature, and educational psychology to music pedagogy. Because I had a degree in education and had taught general kindergarten through third grade, I warmed to her ability to merge educational and musical theories.
In 1989, I began work as coordinator and eventual co-author of a new piano series published by Hal Leonard. When first approached about this possibility, I deferred. Every time I sat down to begin an outline of the books, I could hear Frances Clark's voice in my head, "Barbara, do you know what you taught on that page?" Yet it is because of her that I eventually found the courage to agree to the project.
Although I was never formally her student, Frances Clark taught me nonetheless. While I certainly didn't recognize it at the time, on that day of my defeat, Frances Clark handed me my hope. She didn't tell me I was musical, as if it were some paste-on gift over which I had no control; she asked me to find the music in myself. She didn't say "shows promise" as if the flowering of that promise depended on the vagaries of the emotional weather and musical opportunities that came my way; she challenged me to make a promise to myself, to trust my ability to observe, to study, and to master the music I so love.
The day I burned Frances Clark's words, her belief that music is in every child burned itself into me. I take part of her into every lesson I teach.
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