Summerkeys

[zillybug]

I just returned from my first time at Summerkeys.  My friend Gina and I drove from upstate New York and stayed over one night each way. It's about a 9 1/2 hour drive. We stayed in Belfast the first night which was about 6 hours. We wanted time to visit Acadia the next day. We arrived in Lubec on Saturday evening, did some grocery shopping and settled into the house we had rented. In June, the house which had 3 bedrooms and 1 1/2 baths plus a view of the bay from the kitchen and deck, rented for $550 for a week. There was a path and boardwalk to the Mowry beach just down the street behind the high school. Gina did not participate in Summerkeys. She had brought her dog and they hiked every day. If you like the outdoors, there is plenty to do for friends and family that do not do music. Lubec is breathtakingly beautiful. On Sunday afternoon, I went over to Summerkeys, asked someone in the office if I could practice and he said yes. I practiced for a couple of hours on a nice Yamaha Grand in one of the practice sheds which had a view of the bay.

There was an orientation session for newbies at 7:30 and there were only 2 of us. At 8:00 there was a meeting of all the students and faculty to go over schedules and get to know each other. This was the first week and a very quiet week. There were only 4 piano students and 8 cello students.   Lauren who works for Summerkeys explained our schedules, and gave us a tour. She was extremely nice and friendly as I found everyone at Summerkeys to be, both students and faculty. On Monday evening we had a get together at the Inn on the wharf. They usually have a dinner but said they were trying something different this year so it consisted of appetizers and dessert, and drinks were extra.

The two returning piano students who have been coming for 5 and 6 years said they always come at this time and that it is always quiet but that there are usually 6 to 8 piano students. Since there were only 4 of us, Bruce Potterton, the director taught the class and all of us for our private lessons. I believe that in the summer, Bruce teaches the theory class and other teachers teach the performance class. He did a combination of both theory and performance during our 3 classes. Others have written about what a gifted teacher Bruce is and I have to agree. He is really good at explaining theory and helping you get rhythms.

As I mentioned in previous post, I just came back to the piano a little over a year ago after over 35 years of not touching a piano and over 45 years since I has a lesson. I had a 45 minute lesson each day and I signed up for extra practice so I had 4 hours of practice a day. I asked to have it split up as I knew I could not do 4 hours in a row. They did split it up so I was able to handle it. I was very happy with Bruce as a teacher and I am sure my teacher at home will be happy as I learned to have patience doing extremely slow practice. Bruce is calm and patient but very particular of course and really gets you to do your best. At the first lesson, I played through the Mendelssohn Song Without words, Consolation and a Brahms waltz, opus 39, no 15. He was encouraging and said that I had done good work on them. On the Mendelssohn there are two lines that have a lot of large chords and it is difficult to bring out the melody. My teacher at home had me practice by isolating the melody and the harmony for the 2nd of these lines. Bruce wanted it done for both lines. It sounds easy to just play the melody but it's not when you have to use the same fingers you use when playing the whole chords. In this case, it means you are using your 4th and 5th fingers a lot. At home, I have a week to do it, here you only had until the next day. Of course, the 4th and 5th are the weakest fingers and I heard a lot from Bruce during the first couple of lesson, that's wimpy; play it again and make sure you press all the way into the keybed so it's not wimpy. After I could do that, on the 3rd day, Bruce gave me an exercise which he said would help with learning how to use arm weight to bring out the melody. You play the whole chord and then quickly lift your fingers off the bottom notes as if you are playing them staccato. We spent most of the week on those two lines. I did play the whole piece through for him one more time on Friday as that was the piece I was playing Friday evening. I think I only ever played the Brahms all the way through the first lesson. He said the first part was pretty good except to be careful to keep my thumb in the left hand light. We spent every lesson working on the last part of it with the triplets which is the hardest part. I have been playing it for months but could not get the triplets even. Well, if I thought my teacher at home liked slow practice, Bruce really slowed it down. He initially just kept saying, that's too fast for practice. I asked him how slow he wanted it and said I had brought a metronome with me. He set the metronome for 72 and that meant every click was one note of the triplet. He had me play the right hand alone from the 1st beat of the measure to the 3rd and stop. Then I had to start from the 3rd beat of the measure and go to the first beat of the next measure and so on. Then you gradually add a measure at a time. you do this with each hand separate and then start the process all over hands together. After two days he had me increase the metronome 2 clicks and start the process all over again. He said to keep gradually increasing the speed and do the whole process each time I did. One of the other returning students  said that he calls it Zen practice, very slow and focused. It's still slow but they are even. The 3rd thing we worked on were 16th note runs from a sonatina that I have trouble keeping even and in time. Well, he set the metronome at 46 for the quarter note to start and again had me practice them in sections. Since returning to the piano as an older adult, I have struggled with rhythm that I do not remember having trouble with when I was younger. Bruce has a different way of counting to help you get the rhythms. He has you count using the syllables of the word elderberry which for some reason seems to help. I will admit that I really often don't feel comfortable counting out loud but Bruce insisted and I knew I needed to do it. There was a lot of counting and clapping and after a couple of days, I got used to it.

In theory, Bruce taught us how to do 2 against 3 and 3 against 4. We also worked on triads and one night he gave us an assignment to come to the next class with triads that were difficult to name. He really does do a marvelous job explaining theory. The 2 against 3 is now fairly easy but the 3 against 4 still needs work. On Friday evening, we had the performance class at the church. I usually have horrible performance anxiety when it is in a large group. I have gotten to the point where I am okay when it is just a small class. I played the Mendelssohn that I had played at the school where I take lessons. I had tried to play it from memory that time and got so nervous that I forgot the 2nd note. I then used the music but was pretty flustered. At Summerkeys I had already decided that I was going to have the music up there. I am happy to say that it was probably the best experience I have had playing in front of people. I'm sure it helped that there were only 12 of us plus friends or family and teachers so probably about 30 people. That was actually about the same number that there were at the school where I take but you have to bow and it feels more formal. At Summerkeys, it felt very relaxed. The cello teacher, Matt, introduced the different people and he would joke and keep it light. People made mistakes and laughed about them. I was the 7th person to play and then one more person or group before the intermission. The cellists played more as they played duets, trios and quartets as well as 3 of them played pieces for cello and
piano. With the intermission, it went from 7:30 to about 9:00.

After the performance we all went to Carol's house for a
party. Carol is the accompanist for Summerkeys. During this week, Carol as well as Richard McIntyre and John Newel who are also piano teachers accompanied the cellists. There is a concert every Wednesday evening at the church and this week it was Richard on the organ. He was amazing as all the teachers are. We cooked a lot of our own meals but we did eat out a couple of times. We ate at Cohill's in town twice and the second time there was live Irish music on the deck. After we finished and were walking back to our car, we heard more live music coming from the Water Street Tavern. There was a pianist and bass player playing jazz. It was an absolutely wonderful experience. I did not want to leave and can't wait to go back next year. I think going the first week was a good experience for me the first time. I will probably go the last week in June next year as it tends to have a few more people. I would highly recommend Summerkeys and if anyone has any questions, I will be glad to try to answer them. One thing I especially appreciate about Summerkeys is that you have the same teacher for each lesson and you can request a specific teacher.
Judy