Instrumental (5 page)

I found a way. I learned how to read music – it isn't hard and it's an essential first step. But of course I had no idea about things like fingering or how exactly to practise. Which finger to use on which note is, arguably, the most important part of how to learn a piece. Get it right and it makes your job so much easier. Get it wrong and it's an uphill battle that will never be fully secure in performance. There are so many factors to take into account. Here's an easy one, for example: what combination of fingers will make the melody sound clearest, smoothest, joined up and voiced as the composer intended, while still playing all the other notes and chords that are surrounding it? Some fingers are weaker or stronger than others and shouldn't be used in certain places; the thumb, for example, is heaviest and will make whichever note it hits sound louder than, say, the fourth finger, and so that has to be considered. The physical link between the fourth and fifth fingers is comparatively quite weak (especially in the left hand) and so when playing passages containing scales you should try and move from the third finger to the little finger, missing out the fourth entirely, in order to make them more even. Trilling (an ultra-rapid alternation of two notes, usually side by side, to create a vibrato, quivering sound) is easiest between the second and third fingers, but sometimes the same hand is playing a chord at the same time and so you need to trill between the fourth and fifth fingers to make everything flow naturally.

Sadly, the easiest combination to use physically doesn't always work musically (it can make things sound choppy or disconnected, uneven or unbalanced). Where a physical connection between two notes is impossible (too big a jump or simply not enough fingers) you need to learn to use weight to make the join sound totally connected, even if you're not actually physically connecting them. There must always be awareness not just of the note that you are playing but the relation of that note to what has come before and what is coming afterwards, and using the correct fingering is the surest way of doing that.

Sometimes you can play some of what the right hand is meant to be playing with the left hand to make it easier and vice versa, even if it's just one note of a chord – but it doesn't usually say that in the score and so you need to learn to spot opportunities to do it, mark it in the score, remember it, finger it, ensure the melodic line is still clear, that you're not using the pedals (which sustain and/or dampen the notes) too much, that you are in fact playing
all
the notes the composer wrote down, that the runs are even and balanced, the chords are correctly weighted (each individual finger must use a slightly different weight and force when playing a chord with five notes simultaneously), that the speed and volume are perfectly judged, graded and executed, the tone (how to use the weight of the hand, arms, fingers to make the chord you're playing sound a certain way) isn't too harsh or too soft, the wrists and arms aren't too tight, your breathing is right, the volume is measured and correct, and so on. It's like a giant maths puzzle where you get to use logic to solve it. But if you don't understand logic in the first place you're shooting in the dark.

The school I was at had a piano teacher of sorts, and he and I had a few sporadic lessons together, but he had no clue either. Of course he didn't – he was the music teacher who did everything and happened to play the piano at a pretty low level, and so he was the ‘piano teacher' there. He knew as much about fingering, tone, breathing or posture as I did.

And all of this stuff is purely mechanics. The physical ‘how to' of learning and playing a piece. It doesn't even touch on musical interpretation or how to memorise a piece. Christ, sometimes Bach didn't even specify what instrument a piece should be played on, let alone things like the speed and volume of it. Things got more detailed with Mozart and Beethoven as composers started to indicate those things, but even so they are merely signposts. There will never, can never, be two identical performances of the same piece of music, even when you're playing it twice yourself. There is an infinite choice of interpretation, and everyone has different opinions as to what is the ‘right way', what is respectful/disrespectful of the composer, what is valid, what is exciting, what is dull, what is profound. It's entirely subjective.

And where to even begin with memorising approximately 100,000 individual notes so that even when phones go off, latecomers shuffle in, the wrong finger is accidentally used thus fucking up muscle memory completely, you are still totally secure. Some people visualise the score in their head, complete with coffee stains and pencil markings. Some rely on muscle memory. Some even use the score (which goes very much against the norm in solo recitals but is never a bad thing if it enables a great performance and removes crippling nerves). For me the best way is to play a piece through at a tenth of the
normal speed without music because if you can get through it like that then there is nothing to worry about. Imagine an actor rehearsing a giant, hour-long monologue, going through it and pausing for three seconds between each word – if he can do that he knows it inside out and will nail it during performance. Playing it through in my mind, without moving my fingers, away from the piano and in a darkened room is a great memorising tool as well. Seeing the keyboard and my fingers on the right notes in my mind's eye proves invaluable.

And so learning the piano is maddening because it is at once an exact and an inexact science; there is a specific and valid way to master the mechanics underlying the physical performance of it (even this is dependent on physical attributes such as size, strength, finger span etc), and an inexact, ethereal, intangible route to find the meaning and interpretation of the piece being learned. And figuring out all of this as a vaguely retarded ten-year-old, pretty much entirely on his own and emotionally and physically fucked, was a bit of an ask.

I remember the first time I learned a full piece – the sense of achievement and total, utter delight I felt. It doesn't matter that it was Richard Clayderman's ‘Ballade pour Adeline' (well to be fair it kind of does, I can only apologise) or that it was probably riddled with wrong notes. I had learned something, from memory, and could play it the whole way through. And all the arpeggios sounded fast and impressive and just like the guys on my tapes sounded, and holy shit this is the best thing that's ever happened to me. Christ how I wanted to play it to people, but there was no one there to get it, to hear it, to understand what it meant. I had to keep it just for me even if my
heart was exploding with excitement, and that somehow made it even more special.

I was such a well-adjusted kid.

The only thing that came close to my worship of all things piano was smoking. Fucking smoking. The best invention since anything anywhere. This whole book could be a love letter to tobacco. The only thing greater than being on my own as a kid and playing the piano was wandering around hiding from the world smoking cigarettes. These magical cylinders with the most extraordinary medicinal qualities offered me everything I felt was missing. Getting hold of them was easier than you'd think, especially in 1985 – friendly newsagents, older kids, the odd kind (and horny) teacher. Silk Cut was my best friend.

I look at my life today and realise not much has really changed – Marlboro now, but cigarettes and the piano are the central things in my life. The only things that will not, cannot, let me down. Even the threat of cancer would simply be an excuse to finally watch
Breaking Bad
in its entirety and take a metric fuck-tonne of drugs.

The thing about smoking that they don't tell you is how good it is at stifling feelings. Later I found out that in several of the psych wards I was in, they actively encouraged patients to smoke as it made the nurses' job a lot easier. There is nothing as terrifying to a mentally ill person as a feeling. Good or bad doesn't matter. It still has the potential to turn our minds upside down and back to front without offering the vaguest clue how to deal with it reasonably or rationally. I am at least forty-three times more likely to top myself if I am not smoking. And so I smoke. Whenever I can, as much as I can. The odd
occasion I've tried to stop has always been to please other people – the girl, family, society. Never works. I am a master at engineering a crisis that allows those close to me to grant smoking consent again. If there's a loaded gun (real or imagined) or a pack of cigarettes in front of you, take the smokes every time. I know that's off-message. But good God they work wonders for me. Even the thought of being able to smoke at a certain future event, be it a concert, party, interview, restaurant, keeps me on a somewhat even keel. Take that away (airports, for example) and I'm going to fuck your shit up. It's why I more often than not come back out through security for a last smoke and then all the way back through it again before flying off anywhere. Totally worth getting molested by the TSA assholes yet again. I'm not proud of it. I know it makes me seem like a wanker. A slave. A raging addict in total denial. I don't even care. I am all of those things and I will always be pathetically grateful for Big Tobacco.

So in a way, there were, on a good day, sufficient positive things to counteract the negative and I was happy enough at boarding school. I got into this cycle of terror (bullying, aggressive and unwanted sex, bewilderment) followed by the calm of space to smoke, play piano, listen to music. It reminds me of what it must be like for a soldier to come back from action to his home country for a few days before shipping off again. And this cycle continues unabated today. Terror of being on stage, of being intimate with Hattie, of seeing the psychiatrist, of being with my son and its attendant feelings, of being in social situations, circumstances I cannot control. And relief when home with a piano, locked door, ashtray, US TV shows, alone, uninterrupted. Time alone. The Holy Grail.

TRACK FIVE

Beethoven, Piano Sonata No. 32, Op. 111, Second Movement

Garrick Ohlsson, Piano

In 1770, a child is born into difficult, violent, terrifying circumstances. His family is riddled with alcoholism, domestic violence, abuse and cruelty Things get so out of control that at sixteen he takes his own father to court to wrest control of his income so that his family can eat.

While in his twenties, he singlehandedly drags music by the scruff of its neck from the Classical into the Romantic age, focusing on emotions, looking inwards, flouting convention, staying relentlessly true to his own convictions, composing for the orchestras of the future and resolutely indifferent to others' perceptions of him.

Totally deaf wracked with pain, emotionally fucked, he composes his thirty-second and final piano sonata in 1822, a few years before his death.

It represents the absolute summit of his musical output for the piano.

Two movements long instead of the usual three or four, it manages, somehow, to transcend the level of human existence we inhabit and take us somewhere
higher, where time stands still and we actually experience the concept of ‘interiority' that he had spoken about and the inner worlds his music represents. This was music not for God or the Court; it was about feelings, about looking inwards, about humanity, ee cummings wrote that ‘to be nobody-but-yourself – in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else – means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting'. Beethoven lived that every day of his goddamn life.

A WORD ABOUT TIME. BECAUSE
it's important. Space is nothing without time. Time is a buffer. A safe space in between stuff happening. There is literally nothing as comforting to me as a completely empty day in my diary. No meetings, dinners, appointments, coffees with friends, dates, concerts. The knowledge that I can be at home all day with enough time to do whatever I need to do. It's the reason I arrive stupidly early to appointments, get to Heathrow five hours before my flight is due to leave, believe that a ten-minute car journey needs an hour. If there is enough time then I am safe. Needing six clear hours to do two hours of practice is about right. Same with every area of my life. Every album I've recorded I've been allotted three or four days' recording time and have used half of it. Exams completed within half the allocated time. Deadlines met magnificently early. Chores done in a third of the time needed. It's great for business, not so great for personal stuff. Dates don't want to order within thirty seconds of being given a menu and be done with dinner after forty-five minutes. They don't want to be next to someone constantly on the verge of a breakdown if they haven't left for a party round the corner two hours
before the start, who is always the first person to show up, who they know when you say ‘meet at 6' will be there waiting at 4.30, hopping from foot to foot like a slightly anxious meerkat.

I am driven by a hundred thousand different forms of terror. Terror of being criticised, of running out of time, of not being good enough, of getting things wrong, missing out on something, not being able to focus on other things that may come up, letting other people down. It is a constantly shifting, free-floating anxiety that no matter what is done to assuage it, will easily and quickly attach itself to something new I haven't even thought of yet. Like playing some David Lynch-inspired game of Whack-a-mole where every time you hit one on the head, a dozen more shoot up around you. And they smirk at you and say the most awful things and remind you of just how fucked you are.

I wake up with it. Always have.

If there were an ultra-neurotic Jewish mother, on coke, who was beyond evil and got wet off malevolence, that is that part of my mind. And so I hurl myself at the fucking piano as if my life depends on it. I throw myself into work. And from the outside I look like any other hard-working motherfucker who just wants to do the best job possible and not let people down. But the reality is that if I don't then I will die, I will murder, I will fall apart in the worst possible way. It is incredibly lucky that occasionally the urge for self-preservation looks like you have a decent work ethic. Fear, masquerading as humility and commitment to the job at hand, is enough to pull the wool over anyone's eyes.

And that's how I got through school. Terror-driven homework, panic-studying for exams, trying as hard as I could to make time
expand and increase and cocoon things so that there was, at the very least, the illusion of safety there. I was a smart kid, too. The greatest benefit from being serially abused as a kid is the ability it gives you to read situations, minds, energy. Put me in front of an adult and I will know within a few seconds what they need to hear and see in order to feel comfortable and amenable to me. It worked brilliantly with teachers – depending on the kind of person they were, I was either homesick, vulnerable, tough, plucky, cute, flirtatious, needy or independent. And it got me whatever I wanted. Extra time in exams, higher grades, extra chocolate, leave of absence from PE, pocket money. Whatever. The point is that I figured out by the age of ten that I could be in any situation and survive, sometimes even flourish, because I have the manipulative power of a superhero.

Abuse sets you up for life to be a survivor. With that part of me that split off during the rapes running the show, I can exist with no money, no friends, nowhere to live and not only appear to be OK but actually appear to be thriving. During dark times friendships mean nothing; humans are seen only as routes to getting certain things – money, comfort, approval, a job, sex, and once their purpose is served it is on to the next one. The best ‘friends' are the ones who I can keep coming back to for more and more over years – businesses always value repeat customers the highest, with good reason. Interactions are often simply transactions for victims of abuse. And sociopaths. That's why diagnoses are so fucking difficult – autism, Asperger's, PTSD, bipolar, various psychopathologies, narcissism, all share so many core attributes in the diagnostic manual. So I could be generous and say I have Asperger's and therefore I am quite manipulative and struggle
with empathy, or I could say I'm a psychopath who is incapable of empathy. Both fit. Take your pick.

The problem, the great problem, is the following: while it serves a purpose, while you think you can remember all the lies, all the different characters you need to play depending on who you're with, eventually, after a few years you begin, inevitably, to lose track. It starts to catch up with you. And you start to doubt yourself. And that's when the trouble starts. You need to remember everything, and if you can't, or aren't quite sure if you're ‘broken, broke victim' to a certain person as opposed to ‘successful go-getter' then everything falls apart. So turning up in a brand new BMW for a weekend away with a friend who believes you're struggling to make ends meet requires serious explanation, more lies to keep track of, more information to retain. It is exhausting, terrifying and the stakes can be very high.

One of my diagnoses was dissociative identity disorder, where I have a number (thirteen if you're curious) of ‘alters' who, depending on the situation, take turns to run the show. In effect that means I have thirteen people available as and when required, to do the job of one. It is like a military operation, and partially explains the memory problems, because the alters don't always communicate with one another effectively, if at all. Some are good, some are cold; all share one common goal – to survive no matter what.

There doesn't seem to be a cure, as such, for DID but it can be managed. The alters can be identified, acknowledged, talked to and made friends with. The less useful ones can be told to keep quiet, the more helpful ones encouraged to assimilate with the whole. That was a fun few days with the doctor.

And when it has got too much and I've had to walk away from a friend/relationship/colleague, when I've screwed things up because it all just got too complicated, it doesn't really matter because I can just start again with someone else, but it's frustrating to lose. Annoying to drop the ball and fail. Must try harder. It becomes almost a kind of game. And in a way it's sad because most of my friends and family genuinely love me. They believe they know the real me, and even if they've got doubts about some aspects of my behaviour or personality, they naively, if charmingly, believe that those doubts simply make them smart and empathic because they can see my many layers and still love me and understand me. But there is a complexity to things that people who weren't fucked as a kid just cannot understand.

Example – a girlfriend asks me a question. An easy one.

‘What shall we eat for dinner?'

A Normal will answer, ‘Chicken.'

Perhaps, ‘Whatever you'd like, sweetheart, I'm easy.'

Or, if we're generous, ‘Pick a restaurant, darling, and I'll take us there with pleasure.'

A survivor (especially one with PTSD or similar) needs to run through the following questions
silently
and in a split second before giving his answer:

Why is she asking?

What does she expect me to say?

How will she react if I do say that?

What does she want to eat?

Does she want me to suggest what I know she'll like?

Does she want me to suggest taking her out?

Why?

Have I done anything wrong?

Do I need to make up for anything?

What is the answer I want to give?

Why?

What will happen if I say that?

Is it a trick question?

Is it an anniversary?

What did we eat yesterday?

What are we eating tomorrow?

What do we have in the fridge?

Will she think I'm criticising her shopping skills?

What does she want me to answer?

What would her perfect guy answer?

What would a guy in the movies answer?

What would a normal person answer?

Who do I want/need to be when I answer this?

What would he answer?

Is that answer acceptable?

Is that answer in line with the ‘me' she believes she knows?

Am I happy with this answer?

What is the probability she will be happy with this answer?

Is that an acceptable percentage?

If it fails, what is my get-out strategy?

Can I backtrack without causing too much damage?

What tone should I use?

Should it be phrased as a question?

A statement?

An order?

And on and on. In the blink of an eye. Kids at school who are being abused will take too much time to answer direct questions and appear evasive and startled. And they will be labelled ‘difficult', ‘stupid', ‘ADHD', ‘rebellious'. They're not. They're in some way being fucked. Look into it.

As you get older it becomes even more ingrained, like breathing. Sometimes, occasionally, it'll take us unawares. Especially first thing in the morning or when we're overtired. And so in case we're not quite bringing our A game when we're asked a question, we perfect the whole distraction routine: ‘God you're looking beautiful', ‘Fuck, my back just twinged', ‘I love you so much', ‘I was just thinking about when . . . (insert romantic memory here)', or more commonly, we stare into space pretending to be lost in thought and not hearing the question when in fact our brains are already racing to come up with a suitable answer. Anything to buy enough time to figure out the goddamn suitable answer.

We are multi-tasking, quick-thinking, hyper-aware, in-tune bastards. And it is a thankless, ceaseless, never-ending deluge of threat upon threat, fire after fire that has to be put out instantly. And because the body/brain cannot figure out the difference between real and imagined terror, they react as if we really are in the middle of a genuine war.

War is the best word to describe the daily life of a rape survivor. There are threats everywhere, you cannot relax ever, you take whatever you can get whenever you can get it because you are so scared of it not being there tomorrow – food, sex, attention, money, drugs. And
you keep going on a mixture of adrenaline and terror. Morals go out of the window, the rulebook doesn't exist any more, you will survive at all costs no matter what. And living like that has certain knock-on effects. I cannot begin to tell you how fucked up the physical symptoms of abuse are. I spent years, decades even, almost chained to a toilet. As a kid at boarding school I was in there pretty much every night, usually around 3 a.m., in agony. Sweating and nauseous from the pain, feeling like there was a knife being twisted into my guts. Shitting what felt like water, too scared to leave the loo for at least two hours. Same again in the morning. I swear I got through childhood on around three to four hours' sleep a night. It's great for maintaining weight loss, not so good for socialising.

I know I'm going on about this quite a lot. But honestly, there's a lot to go on about. It is so easy to assume the abuse stops once the abuser is no longer in the picture and so hard to hear that that is only the beginning of it for those taking the abuse.

It didn't get better as an adult. That horrific feeling of being on a packed tube on the way to work, sweat pouring off my face, soaking through my shirt, guts absolutely wrenched in pain, not sure if I was going to make it to the loo in time. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I could write a guide to the best easy-access toilets in London. I will, to the day I die, be grateful to luxury hotels. Shuffling into the Dorchester, the Lanesborough, the Ritz trying to look as if I belonged there and heading straight to the john just as my guts exploded in the warm safety of the locked marble-encrusted interior. Luxury hotels fit the bill only because they have multiple stalls and solid doors – Christ, Claridge's even has a white noise machine outside to preserve
decorum. Popping into a Starbucks single cubicle for a terror-dump is a no-no purely because of the fear of a queue forming outside, noises being heard, judgment, stress, anxiety, not enough time.