Scales

Joanna felt the adrenaline leave the glands, encircle her middle, spread tingles down her legs, up her torso, up her neck, and finally down her arms into her fingers. Her palms began to sweat. She wiped them on the inside hem of her skirt. She blew on them. She was dressed in concert black. She sat inside the sound proofed audition hall with four others. Candidates seven and eight had already played and been dismissed. Candidate six was in the concert hall now. Joanna was next.

She’d started playing piano when she was six. She could play tunes she heard. She’d taught herself to read music, with minimal help from her father. She’d gotten formal training, and graduated teachers as she graduated to more complicated pieces. She aspired to play Rachmaninoff. Even though she stood four foot ten, with a finger span of just an octave plus, where Rachmaninoff had a range of an octave and a half. Middle C to high G.

Hanon it was. Hanon virtuoso piano in 60 exercises. Chromatic runs that put each finger through particular paces, allowing for development of muscle, technique, phrasing. Her fingers crawling from the low register to the upper register. Up Up Up Down Down Up Down Up; a half step higher repeat. Do this for three octaves and then reverse Down Down Down Up Up Down Up Down, three octaves and repeat half a step down each run. Sixteenth notes at a quick pace. How she hated Hanon in the beginning. If she practiced for two hours, one was Hanon. One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight; up half a step repeat three octaves. No pauses. Hanon was more than scales. Hanon was the finger equivalent of jogging up then down Lombard Street in San Francisco. Or so Joanna imagined. She didn’t know for sure. She had never done so, she was too busy practicing.

The repetitive motion made her fingers stronger, her reach greater, she tackled Debussy’s Clar de Lune and graduated to Chopin’s Nocturn. Eventually she found Hanon calming, reassuring, like an old friend. She’d run up and down the registers with nimble fingers. When she’d first started, her reach was not quite an octave. Even Chopin seemed impossible. She was running through Hanon 53 in her head. She could hear each perfect note, three octaves up, then reverse and come back down.

A gentleman opened the door to the practice room and called her name softly. She didn’t try to make eye contact with the other competitors, they were lost in their own thoughts anyway. She concluded her mental recitation. This was the Rachmaninoff Competition. She approached the piano with confidence backed by hours of Hanon.

— Lkai