I wrote this to honor Joan Elander on the 25th anniversary of her death May 6, 1993. She was tragically hit by car while on her regular morning jog. Even more tragically, the driver of the car was a 17 year old girl who was being allowed to drive to school for the first time. Two families devastated in one careless moment. The impact Joan had on my life is far greater than any relative or sibling and maybe even more than my parents. We all should remember the potential impact our words and actions can have, for better or worse, on the others in our life we meet and establish some sort of relationship. Even after more than 60 years, Joan’s words ring vividly true in my memory.
Joan was my primary piano teacher from age 7 to 17 when I went off to college. While Joan never went to a Conservatory or studied music in college, she was trained by her mother, a Jacobs School of Music graduate of Indiana University. During the years I took piano lessons from Joan, I was mostly an indifferent student. Sometimes a particular piece of music would light a little musical fire in me but it would quickly burn out. When I became a teenager, I graduated from an indifferent piano student to an argumentative, sassy and disrespectful piano student.
Joan never gave up on me regardless of my outbursts. Quietly and patiently she would get my attention back on the music at hand and we would proceed with the lessons. I had a big issue in my life that was interfering not only with piano lessons but all my relationships. I had polio when I was 2 years old and as a result of the ravages polio took on my body was disabled to extent that I could not do normal things like running or even walking far. I was extremely upset that I was not a “normal” kid who could play baseball.
As a result of wrestling with my feeling not normal, I would sometimes blow off my piano lesson on my way to her house, about ½ mile from where I lived in Minnetonka, Minnesota. I felt like I was the only boy student in the whole state who “had” to take piano lessons. All my friends thought piano was a girl thing. Many weeks I refused to practice and then would try to bluff my way through the lesson by sight reading.
One day when I was 13, in the middle of a lesson, I burst into tears. I started damning God for giving me polio. Joan took my hand and forced me to look directly at her face and eyes. She calmly told me – I have a gift that is much more valuable than any baseball player, even a major leaguer. For I will be able to play the piano well into my 70’s, long after baseball players have retired to sit in their rocking chairs. She taught me to live with what I was able to do and improve on that rather than worry about what I cannot do. I started to work much harder on my music with her weekly encouragement and listening to me when I had another pity potty moment.
One day when I was 14, I came to my lesson and Joan was at the piano playing the first movement of the Moonlight Sonata. I was awestruck – I had never in my life heard anything so beautiful. I begged her for the music but she felt I was not ready yet to play such a piece well. However, my begging finally broke her resistance and I left the lesson, music in hand. I probably spent 30 hours that week practicing the piece, trying to replicate how I heard Joan play it. I wanted to show her that she was wrong about me, I could play advanced piano pieces. At that week’s lesson, I sat down at the piano and proceeded to play the Moonlight for Joan. At the end of the piece both of us were in absolute tears.
She then gave me another important life lesson. Knowing my love for baseball, she told me that baseball players might excite people’s hearts with their play. However, a musician can excite a person’s very soul with their music. Music can reach so deep inside a person that it’s like being touched by God. That is what I should be doing with music in my life. She taught me how to get at the emotional core of a piece of music and communicate that emotional core to my audience. That is what makes music – MUSIC!
With these piano and life lessons I became a competent pianist. It was a mutual love of music that brought an attractive pianist to my attention that evolved into marriage, now 47 years long. She is my piano teacher partner in our studio. I have tried to emulate Joan in my own piano teaching – being encouraging, patient, a good ear, and instilling emotion in every piece of music my students play. My students know if they play and a tear rolls down my cheek, they have accomplished the most important goal of music – they have touched a soul.