OFF THE PAGE with River Jordan

OFF THE PAGE with River Jordan

A monthly column that takes us off the page and into the life of River Jordan

On A High Note

I perpetually have a song in my heart but I’ve learned not to let that song escape my lips. Imagine that scene in the Julia Roberts movie, My Best Friend’s Wedding where Cameron Diaz sings karaoke so horribly she is applauded by the entire restaurant. Well, that was a movie. When you sound like three wet cats who have their tails caught under a rocking chair, the karaoke bar is not actually rockin’.

I often get compliments on my voice (which is kinda funny ‘cause I had nothing to do with that. It just came with me) and, I’ve spent twenty years on the radio speaking and interviewing but not singing. For good reason. The last time I ever rocked my youngest to sleep he was three years old. I was singing the same songs to him my mother had sung to me. (They are not your regular lullabies but that’s another story for another time.) He takes his precious, little fingers and places them over my lips and says, “Don’t sing, Mommy. Don’t sing.” He remains an astute critic to this day.

Flash forward in time and I am driving his five-year-old son to visit his cousins which requires an eleven hour drive. Needless to say, eleven hours on the road for a driver involves the radio and some sing-along’s. So I’m driving and singing along when the five year old in the back seat says–Zaza, if you don’t stop singing I am going to throw up–which spurs me on to start singing LOUDER. That is until I look in the rearview mirror and I swear, the kid is looking around his seat for some sort of bag or container to throw up in. Fine. Okay. I get it. Don’t sing.

But this is frustrating because I love music. Of all kinds. The most used app on my phone is Spotify and I’m such a full-time patron you’d think I owned stock in the company. (Yes, I do invest in the commercial free version because it’s worth every penny for me.) I start my mornings with it on playing Gregorian Chant then move to classical music. I actually follow the book, Year of Wonder by Clemency Burton-Hill that highlights a different piece everyday and the history of its composer. (It’s a wonderful way to discover music or better understand classical music and Spotify has playlists for each month separately.) Then I am off to the musical races for the day. Exercise without music? Ludicrous. Best tunes from my teenage years–you betcha–and pointedly listening to new offerings so that I don’t lock my brain into a retro stage. But by dinner time it’s popular instrumentals, jazz, or my Dean Martin playlist.

So, it would seem that as long as I kept my lips closed and enjoyed my music in silence all would be well. Not so. Oh, nay, nay. Why? Because I was gifted musically to be able to play piano. When I was about seven I sat down at my Aunt Kate’s piano and began to sound out the notes of Born Free having never had a lesson. Which means I am not tone deaf as suspected. I have absolutely no understanding of how this can be so but it is. A tone-deaf singer who can sound out music without lessons or notes? The world is a curious place.

Because I showed such strange promise as a piano prodigy my mother found me a piano teacher. I would walk a few times a week to her house (back when the world was safe and little girls could walk alone) and sit at the bench, learn notes and timing and receive instruction. Then my 3rd grade teacher announced there would be a talent competition in the class and we should consider officially competing. And this shy, quiet little girl decided to enter the competition and play a dramatic piece. I practiced and practiced. And the day finally arrived.

For reasons known only to my eight-year-old self I secretly took my songbook to school without telling my mother I had entered the competition. I was first on the talent roster which consisted of only two contestants. I figured this at least gave me a fifty/fifty chance although I wouldn’t have worded it way back then. Just that I had a shot at this thing. The teacher instructed the class to rise from our desks and line up. We had to walk down the hallways to a dark room filled with old desks and a piano that hadn’t been tuned since Truman’s administration. The kids were instructed to line up against the wall behind me. Music sheet out, piano opened, fingers on keys.

I began to softy, lightly (allegro) play the opening, then I arrived at the dramatic portion and played with passion (adagio). To which the children lined up on the walls began to laugh. I continued playing. The teacher corrected them, “Now, children, be nice.” I played the allegro notes sweetly, then reached the dramatic portions and played with those somber adagio notes which always elicited laughter no matter what the teacher said. I’d like to point out at this point that my eight-year-old self continued playing in spite of the dust and the dark room and the children’s laughter. Back straight. Face forward. No tears. Finally, the song was over. I closed the piano. We lined up to return to class with me bringing up the rear.

It was time for my only opponent to perform her talent. And – she did. This eight-year-old stands up with the confidence of Madonna, takes off her raincoat and reveals she is wearing a pink tutu. She then pulled tap shoes out of her bookbag and I had a heavy, sinking feeling. There was no laughing during her dance but there was a huge round of applause afterwards. After what felt like a marathon of pink and sparkles and taptaptapping it was time to vote.

We were passed out little ballot slips with two choices. It was me or it was her. I made my choice, folded the paper and passed it forward. The teacher collected all the votes, leaned on her desk, and appointed a helper to move forward to the board with a piece of chalk. She then proceeded to open the paper slips and read ALOUD the vote selections one by one. Again, one by one. I’d have to go back to some old class photo to count how many votes there were but it was at least twenty-five, maybe thirty because we didn’t talk back or argue with the teacher back then and crowd control was not an issue.

The teacher read the names, the helper placed little white marks by our names on the board. The tutu received a gazillion forty-five votes. I received two. One of them was mine. I’d like to point out that I remained in class for this entire experience, back straight, no tears. But I walked home that day a somber child fully aware that dreams could be crushed, life could be hard and you could never fight the power of a pink tutu.

I’d love to say I went on to take piano lessons for twenty years and performed somewhere to a stranding ovation. But the opposite thing happened. I refused to practice and begged off lessons. My mother pleaded with me but I was stubborn and tight lipped about the whole thing. Immovable. The piano collected dust. Was only occasionally used to goof around on for a duet of heart and soul. Eventually, after many years of disuse, it was sold.

Years later my mother told me that the piano teacher told her I was the best, most promising student she had ever had. A little kernel she had never shared with me. Not even when I pulled up anchor and left lessons far behind. But here’s the thing. If you have music in your soul-you just do. Because I had another way to express the joy of what I heard. I could dance. And, it wasn’t to compete or win any accolades. It was for the pure joy of the movement and the sound. And music was (and is) so powerful for me that this shy little girl would get up and dance. Imagine Baloo in the Jungle Book getting so moved by the music that he can’t help but say, “I’m gone man. Solid gone,” and dances his way out of hiding. I dance as a baby, as a five year old in front of a crowd to the amazement of the people attending. (If the internet were alive then I would have been an internet sensation. Really.) I may never have qualified to be in the Alvin Ailey dance troop but I would have made it as a backup dancer on the old Dean Martin Show. So that’s what I do. I dance when I’m happy and when I’m tired and when I just need to remember how wonderful it feels to be alive. Also, I’ve learned to take that passion and bring it to the page. To write stories and novels that have a kind of lyrical movement to them.

In a New York Times Book Review interview author Patrick Modiano was asked what moved him most in a work of literature. He responded, “The style. The music. What moves me most in a book is to hear the same voice speaking to me from the beginning to the end of it.”

Maybe, just maybe, I’m not so tone deaf after all.

River Jordan is an author, speaker, teacher and radio host. As a southerner with a global perspective she is a passionate advocate for the power of story. River's writing career began as a playwright and she spent over ten years writing and directing. She is the best-selling author of four novels and a three spiritual memoirs. As a critically-acclaimed author her work has been most frequently cast in the company of such writers as Flannery O'Conner, William Faulkner, and Harper Lee.