Piano Teacher – all ages. Call Charlie. This handwritten message was on a Post-It, pinned to a noticeboard in my local café. I scribbled down the details and next morning, I phoned Charlie. A few days later, a young man, slightly unkempt and every inch a wannabe rock star, appeared on my doorstep.
I’d invited him to give lessons to my teenage daughter. But while I was making a coffee for him before they got started, I heard him play to entertain himself. It sounded magical. I’d never learned a musical instrument, instead taking satisfaction in simply buying records and singing along to them. Hearing him play so well gave me the urge to be more creative. So, I asked Charlie to teach me as well. And as my daughter’s school pressures increased and her interest in the piano waned, she dropped out, leaving me to become Charlie’s sole pupil.
We’d begun using a cheap synthesiser that I’d bought from a charity shop, but at his insistence, we upgraded to a real piano, an upright that had probably seen service in a pub or club, complete with candelabras and piano stool. He’d spotted it in a second-hand furniture store, and had reserved it for me to buy – a touching show of faith. He must have seen something in me, or assumed that someone of my age, wanting to learn after so long, must be keen and dedicated. And at the time, I think I think he was right.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before I began to let him down, and he would have realised why I’d never learnt in the first place. I never practiced. He’d remind me that he used to practice three hours a day when he was learning, and urged me to give it at least thirty minutes between his weekly visits. Then there were the interruptions during lessons. We’d seldom manage a full hour without my having to take an urgent business phone call, often for ten or fifteen minutes. And then there was my inability – and unwillingness – to learn how to read music. Paul McCartney never did, I’d argue, and anyway, all I wanted to do was be sufficiently competent to play a blues or rock’n’roll riff that would serve as accompaniment to singing a Chuck Berry or Jerry lee Lewis song.
Initially undismayed, he persisted, setting me scales and simple tunes to learn. But I seemed to make little progress. Almost as if seeking forgiveness, I did go to a couple of his gigs, even though I felt hopelessly out of place amongst the youngsters he attracted. And the venues were hardly Wembley Arena. More like pubs and small clubs where, although he was on a stage, the main attraction was the bar. He performed his own songs to the accompaniment of clinking glasses and people shouting at each other to be heard over him.
Gradually, my work commitments made it difficult to continue scheduling his lessons with me, and anyway, I sensed my lack of commitment meant he was losing either the heart to continue or interest in teaching. Probably both. Plus, he was still trying to make it professionally. He gave me a CD from a studio session that I gratefully accepted but hardly played. In my defence, when you have a record-buying habit, it’s hard to keep up with every vinyl and CD acquisition, and certainly not with a rough-and-ready CD-ROM.
Eventually, we lost touch. I used to wonder what had happened to him, and if he’d ever managed to come to terms with playing in small venues and never hitting the big time.
I reconnected with him by chance. I was in France, and was browsing the music department of a Carrefour in Calais. They displayed the best sellers on a rack on the wall – I recall Michael Jackson being both at number one and number three. What I hadn’t expected to see was at number two, a CD with Charlie’s picture on the front. A quick online search revealed he had become a huge star on the continent and in Canada. Quite why he had made it in French-speaking countries when he was English, and his lyrics were in English, I have no idea. But the first thing I did after I bought the CD was to check its lyric sheet.
Which brings me to explain why a story about a musician is on an author’s blog. What had he written about? Any creative, whether a songwriter, artist or author, will bring their personal background and experiences to their craft. While what is produced is generally from the imagination, that fiction is likely to include an interpretation of reality, to make it believable. And that inevitably comes from what they have witnessed first-hand. When I scanned the lyrics of Charlie’s songs, I couldn’t help asking myself, did his verses of disappointment and disillusionment allude, in some way, to his relationship with me? Were there any clues that he’d been inspired by – or written with anger through – my failure to take advantage of his advice and tutelage?
There are readers of my novels who have felt the same with my writing. More than once, I have been asked – nay, accused – of writing about them. I have no idea whether they were angered or flattered, but I have twice been given a mug that warns people that ‘anything you say may be used in a story’. Still, I was pleased that my characters must have been sufficiently rounded and believable for readers to think I’d been writing about them.
The reality is that any author – and any other creator – borrows from life, be it situations or people, then uses fragments to build into the fictional narrative, developing – maybe exaggerating – them. It’s what helps keep everything interesting, authentic and credible.
As for Charlie, I haven’t met him since the last lesson he gave me, but I have followed his career. I am so pleased that he’s gone from strength to strength, and it’s satisfying that he is getting recognition and reward for both his talent and dedication.
I still can’t play the piano.
Charlie Winston’s latest album, ‘Love Isn’t Easy’, has just been released on Tôt Ou Tard records.
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