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Accordions

I wanted to play trombone, but at 5 years old I may have been shorter than the horn was long, too short to hold one. I probably couldn't have stretched my arm out far enough to play the low notes. Fine, I told my parents, I'll learn trumpet, then when I'm big enough I'll switch to trombone.

So one night my mom said a music teacher was coming over after dinner. My parents had me wait in my bedroom while they talked to him at first. Then they called me to have him talk to me.

He asked me what instrument I wanted to play. I told him I wanted to play trombone. He told me the same thing my parents had. So I told him the same thing I told them. He said the trumpet might be a little loud for the small apartment we had. So I said I'd play soft. He said the trumpet is loud even if you play it softly. I didn't know what to say to that. Remember, I was only 5.

So he said he had just the thing for me: The accordion. He said it was a perfect choice for a beginner, because you could instantly get a good tone out of it, unlike the violin, say, or the trumpet or the trombone. But I don't want to play the accordion, I told him. He asked if I knew how to read music. I told him I didn't. He said I would have to know how to read music before I could play the trumpet, and that if I learned to read music on the accordion then I could switch to the trumpet later and I would be able to learn quickly because I would already know how to read music. I gave up. I had no choice. I was 5 and the salesman was a full grown adult. It wasn't a fair fight.

So every Thursday afternoon my mother would walk me down to the subway station. I carried the rented black accordion in its battered suitcase. And it was not a light load, let me tell you. I remember struggling down the stairs with it, limping onto the train the weight of the instrument dragged painfully on my arm, and then sitting on top of it as the subway carried us from Queens to the Rainbow School of Music on a busy Downtown street. I had to carry it up a flight of dirty gray linoleum stairs to a tiny, shabby room where I shared lessons with a golden blonde named Donna, another 5 year old. I fell in love with her as soon as I saw her, but I don't think I ever said a word to her. We would play simple melodies together while the teacher tapped his foot or waved a pencil like a conductor. At the end of two months of introductory lessons, the teacher gave us each a present for completing his class. Mine was a used clothbound book with yellowing pages. I think it was some sort of dog story.

Somehow the Rainbow School of Music staff convinced my parents to buy a beautiful red accordion for me. Then they sent a teacher to my apartment every week. At that point, my favorite thing about the accordion was that I didn't have to lug it across town on the subway anymore. I learned to play major and minor scales and a few simple songs. The Rainbow School of Music was going to get all of its students together for a recital at the World's Fair in Flushing one weekend. I'm ashamed to admit that I was excited by the prospect of performing music in public, even if it was on that accordion that I'd never wanted to play. Maybe I would even get to sit next to my old classmate Donna again. But before the day of the show my parents moved to Los Angeles and took me with them. No World's Fair, no Donna, no nothing.

My parents found me a teacher named Mrs. Williams. She came to our apartment once a week, just like the teacher in New York did. I was getting pretty good. I memorized a couple of songs and when my parents had people over for dinner they would have me strap on the accordion and play "Beautiful Dreamer" or some other song I had just learned.

My friend Richard was a superb pianist. At our fifth grade talent show he played the Chopin Prelude in E minor, the really sad one. It was beautiful. I sat on a stool, the accordion on my lap, listening to him. Then it was my turn. I played "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." I think that it was the end of my tolerance of the accordion. I don't know what I said to Mrs. Williams, but my mom told me that it was so disrespectful that she would never come back. I swear I didn't mean to hurt her feelings. I swear. We moved into a house and I talked my parents into getting me a piano. I was hoping I could transfer some of my accordion skills just as that salesman told me I would be able to when I was 5. No luck. I had to start as a beginner. But within a year or two I was playing intermediate level pieces, Bach inventions, and even that Chopin prelude. That was about the time I was 16 and my dad bought me my first car, a 1957 Karmann Ghia, for $375.

I had to find a job to help pay for it, so I was looking through the classified ads. There was a listing under the Telephone Sales category for "Music Lessons: No Experience Necessary." I dialed the number and the woman told me to come at 4 o'clock Thursday for an orientation.

I drove to the address she gave me, which was in Chatsworth, about 20 minutes from my house. People still rode around there on horseback. I walked up a flight of stairs to an office above a row of storefronts. I sat with a bunch of other teen-agers while the woman explained the job to us: "You come in every afternoon at 4. We have a list of kids' names from the local elementary schools. You introduce yourself and say you are calling from the Worldwide School of Music and ask if they would be interested in music lessons for their children. You try to convince them to make an appointment for one of our music teachers to stop by one evening and discuss the educational and cultural value of learning an instrument. Tell them we offer rentals of instruments during an initial trial period and then sales once the student has decided to stick with the lessons. You get their address and note the time and date of the appointment on these cards."

I had a terrible feeling. I needed to confirm it. So I raised my hand. I asked what we should say if the mom says the kid wants to learn trumpet.

She said we shouldn't say anything, we should just make the appointment and let the music teacher discuss the matter later. I saw what was coming, but I had to know for sure, so I asked her if we could say that we offer lessons in most instruments. She said no. I asked what instruments the Worldwide School of Music teaches, even though I knew the answer.

"When the teacher visits the home, he explains that the best instrument for a beginning musician is the accordion. We have a warehouse full of accordions that we use as rentals and another warehouse that we use for sales. We only teach accordion."

I told her I thought I was an alumnus of her school, when it was called by another name on another coast. I got up and walked out because even though I needed the money badly I could not do to others what had been done to me.

Downstairs from the Worldwide School of Music was a western-wear shop called This Store Has No Name. I was too angry to get in my car and drive, so I went in and browsed for a while. I bought a cowboy shirt with blue embroidery across the shoulders. I wore that shirt for years. Every time I put it on I made a silent wish: Accordion bastards, they should DIE for what they did to me and my childhood dream to hit the high notes on a golden horn.

And I can't write about music anymore today because I'm not feeling well at all.

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