How music lessons can teach about life

When the gentlemanly piano tuner peered into our upright, he exclaimed in surprise. According to the log inside, the last time our piano had been tuned was 1982, by the man who had trained him, and has since passed into the great beyond.

I was 7 that year, and have no recollection of the tuner in question; I barely remember the lessons that my mother had arranged for me, my younger brother and older sister, which our parents must have seen as part of an assimilated American upbringing, like signing us for Scouts or getting a Christmas tree.

None of us stuck with the piano, though that early exposure may well have opened the door later on, when we picked up different instruments. My sister became enamored with drums, I took up the flute, and my brother the ukulele.

For decades, the Baldwin piano in the formal living room waited for the next generation of students. As the soundboard and bridges inside the piano expand and contract with the weather, pianos go out of tune. The admonition from the tuner’s log — “Remember good care and regular tuning assures you of top performance from your piano” — went unheeded until a couple of months ago, when my husband and I decided to start our twin sons on lessons.

“The piano is going to go out of tune almost as soon as I leave,” the tuner warned. We’d waited too long between tunings, and the piano wires would need further adjustment.

“Do I have to?” I asked. Privately, I wondered, what if the boys resisted piano lessons, after we’d shelled out for tuning — twice? “What happens if I don’t get it tuned again?”

He looked at me gravely. My sons would end up thinking the notes they played should sound that way, he said.

“When?” I asked sheepishly. “Next week?”

Seeing my hesitation, he softened his stance. “When you want to. When you can.”

I still haven’t, by the way. Perhaps it’s time I did so.

Over the weekend, when Didi practiced, to my delight, for the first time, I recognized the song he was playing. After moving beyond beginner drills, he can play the same cheerful tune that clock towers chime out.

At the bench, he squirms, dashing through the notes, before settling down. An engineer-in-the-making, he loves figuring out how stuff works, and that’s kept up his interest in the piano.

After a couple of piano lessons, Gege protested and asked for drum lessons.

Until now, we’ve always signed them up for the same activity — be it baseball, basketball, soccer, parkour or Mandarin. One drop-off, one schedule to keep track of, but sooner or later, my husband and I understood their interests would diverge.

I found a drum teacher nearby and procured a used metallic-blue, adorably kid-size set that my husband wasted no time sitting down at and pounding out a few licks he learned in high school.

Week by week, my sons go a little further, learning how to build up competency over time. This week, they and their fellow second-grade classmates are scheduled to perform a concert of patriotic songs, including “Grand Old Flag,” “If I Could Be an Eagle,” “We Shall Overcome,” “Lady Liberty,” “Star-Spangled Banner” and, as the finale, “Picnic of the World.”

“All sitting on the same big blanket / With the same big basket / Full of problems and annoyances / But all knowing at the deep down heart of it / We’re all a part of it”

The performance has props, too, flash- lights that double as torches of freedom and sunglasses for the rap number.

We practice at night before bed, and in the car on the way to school. The twins each have a line that they’re supposed to commit to memory.

“Can’t you just read it off a note card?” Iasked. “We have to memorize it,” Didi said. He takes the responsibility seriously. “I’m one of the lucky ones who gets to introduce a song.”

He’s a bit of a ham, as you might have gathered. I think of my own obsessions over the years and the satisfaction I felt, say, in completing a marathon, even though I was far from the front of the pack. That day, I approached the finish line and, weary as I was, incapable of intelligible speech, I felt the supreme satisfaction of setting a goal for myself, and achieving it through steady, incremental practice.

I want my boys to experience the sort of pride you feel when you look back and see how far you’ve come — whatever they may choose to pursue, whatever they may be called to do.

I want my boys to experience the sort of pride you feel when you look back and see how far you’ve come.