Tiny Sawtooth Star

 

I started taking piano lessons in California at age eight. A couple of years later, we relocated to New York and I needed a new teacher. It was beyond lucky that the one fellow teaching piano in our newly adopted town had actually written most of the books I’d studied before we moved. The first thing he did when we met was to examine my hands – before I’d even entered his studio. He took my hands in his and turned them over. I wondered for years what he was looking for. Was it long, delicate fingers that would someday play Chopin’s wide intervals? Strong wrists to tackle Scarlatti's forearm staccatos? I never had the nerve to ask him. But now that I teach piano students of my own, I KNOW. I was a preteen about to lay hands on his nine-foot Steinway grand. He was checking to see that they were CLEAN.