Ariane* - 6th Grade

Every now and then, there’s one of those lessons. You can engage in a power struggle or let them lead the way and see what happens. I’m not in the mood to tussle, so I just let her – Ariane – lead the way while thinking: why would a parent name this kid Ariane? It doesn’t fit her. She needs a stocky and monosyllabic name like Beth or Kim. Ariane is not the kind of name that’s easily shouted across the playground or up the stairs when dinner is ready.

“I am ONLY going to play the piano today. My oboe wants to stay in its case.”

I don’t react. At first. “This is your oboe lesson,” I point out.

But she is already at the piano pounding out Heart & Soul. I tell her that the only way she’s going to be able to play the piano today is if she plays her oboe music, which I set up on the music rack. “The song you’re playing is something everyone learns to play pretty badly and then thinks it’s actual piano playing and it’s not.” She glares at me through her big glasses. I know, of course, that she hasn’t practiced oboe at all this past week. Hence the clever piano diversion.

“I don’t know which note to start on.” She is squinting at the Rubank etude in front of her, poking a few keys.

“Where’s middle C?” This is a bit of a taunt, because I know she’s never taken a piano lesson. She doesn’t know how to play at all. I am waiting for the black key “song” that everyone plays with their knuckles. I’m not going to let that one happen.

She glares at me again. “I DO NOT KNOW WHERE MIDDLE C IS! And I also do not know what Middle C is.” She slams the keyboard cover down and we have to have a conversation about respecting musical instruments. I’m starting to get a little angry but I can’t let a teaching moment go by, and I can’t devolve into despising this kid. There’s a lot going on inside her and I can see that. Feel it.

We spend a few minutes at an impasse. She won’t get her oboe out and now she won’t talk to me. So I start to play. Just noodling around, bits of the slow movement to the Albinoni D minor concerto. Then Gabriel’s Oboe, then a little of the first movement of Flower Clock, then ad libitum from the Saint-Saëns Sonata. I want her to notice how good oboes are at singing angst and sadness and beauty. She sits down on the floor and crosses her arms across her chest. I know she’s listening with every cell of her being. Here we are in a small studio together with 20 minutes left to her lesson. I am relieved that she hasn’t walked out the door.

It takes a few moments, but she scooches across the floor to her case and starts to put her instrument together. I don’t look directly at her, I just play through and linger on the last note of a phrase.

“That was pretty,” she said, her face completely different, her eyes soft behind her enormous spectacles. “You were playing parts of different pieces. Right?”

“Thanks,” I say. “Yes, you’re right. I can tell you what they are if you’d like to know.”

“I want to learn them all. They are pretty and beautiful.”

I am moved because she is so sincere and it’s one of the most meaningful compliments I have ever gotten. I shift her music from the piano to the stand in front of both of us.

In our remaining 15 minutes she morphs into a model student, a sixth grader who plays like a high school student. She listens and then lets the music sing through her in a new way. At the end of our lesson, she carefully packs away the oboe that didn’t want to get out of its case half an hour ago.

“I’m going to practice a lot this week,” she says. I can tell she means it.

*not her real name