Play it Again

Play it Again: An Amateur Against the Impossible

by Alan Rusbridger

"Should I ever make a book out of my endeavour with the Ballade, I resolve, I’ve at least got the title: Play It Again. It has two associations apart from the possibility that I might be sitting in front of an old upright piano in Casablanca this time tomorrow night: returning to the piano as an adult, and the fact that it’s only by endless repetition that any progress is made. The journalist in me also likes the fact that it’s a misquote. Bogart never said it."

“Hausmusik, as we call it, was absolutely the centre of life in the sort of home in which I grew up. What I can describe as Hausmusik, I think even Hitler couldn’t disturb. In any middle-class family, not to mention upper-class family, which I suppose we were, the chances are nine out of ten that somebody in the family plays something. I mean, it’s just more natural than not.

It would be absolutely normal and expected that, certainly once a month, but probably more, there would be a chamber-music evening in the house. I think that goes back to Bach and Handel and so on, I mean Hausmusik was just part of life, much more common than going out to supper or having dinner parties."

"I was suddenly 11 years old again, being told off by the fearsome choirmaster at Guildford Cathedral, Barry Rose. I felt flickers of resentment, and even a little shame, at Michael’s diagnosis and insistent tone. But the point of being an adult learner ought to be that you can accept fair and constructive criticism. I go to him to learn, not to be flattered or charmed or coaxed into playing this piece. But I can taste the bitterness I felt as a teenager. And how, at the age of 16, I  just wanted give up."

"And now, at the end, I know the answer to two questions. Is there time? And, is it too late?

Yes, there’s time – no matter how frantically busy one’s life. There’s always enough time in a week to nibble out a regular twenty minutes here and there if one wants to make it a priority.

And more than that, by making time, life improves: under the great pressures and stresses of the year, I’ve discovered the value of having a small escape valve – something so absorbing, so different, so re-balancing.

And the answer to the second question seems to be equally encouraging. Back in the summer of 2010 I had no idea of just how capable a 56-year-old brain was of learning new tricks. In the course of the past sixteen months I have asked mine to develop capabilities beyond my imagination. Could I really train that sponge of grey matter – already full to overflowing, it often seemed – to not only learn 264 bars of immensely complicated musical notation, but also to memorise great swathes of the piece?

It’s heartening to know that, quite well into middle age, the brain is perfectly plastic enough to blast open hitherto unused neural pathways and adapt to new and complicated tasks. So, no, it’s not too late.

And I’ve learned my mother was right – right to make me play; right in the pleasure music would give me; right that music ability is both a social ice-breaker and the forger of deep and lasting friendships."