David rested his hands on the piano keyboard. There were a number of things he wanted to do that day but practicing wasn't one of them. And yet here it was, 9:00 in the morning—his officially designated practice time. He had a couple of hours clear each morning before he had to start teaching students. He had been very careful not to allow any interruptions to creep into his schedule. This was the perfect time for practicing.
David glanced at his phone. No missed calls. His friends knew better than to try to reach him at this point in the morning. He sighed heavily, then put his hands back on the keyboard. Of course he couldn’t practice for very long. He was, after all, injured. The worst kind of injury for a classical pianist—nerve damage, especially in his right hand. Just a little bit in his left.
He had gone to several specialists about his problem. Some of them found nothing to diagnose. They had as much as told him that it was all in his head, that there was no real problem. But—damn it!—they were his hands. He should know if he had a problem or not.
He had finally found a specialist—a doctor Schmonsky—who agreed with David that somewhere along the line he had suffered some real nerve damage. Why and how was never determined and David didn't much care. He was just relieved to have a medical opinion that gave some credence to the reality he was experiencing.
His hands were by no means unusable; under normal conditions he felt fine. But when he stretched them out on a piano keyboard...well, it wasn't long before he could feel twinges of pain and—more importantly—a tightness that just wouldn't work its way out.
It would be bad enough for anybody, but David was a pianist. It was how he defined himself. He didn't really think he could do anything else with his life. And he had a real position now. Or something like a real position anyway. He was employed as a piano instructor by the Leonard Conservatory, one of the foremost schools of music in Philadelphia. True, he was limited to teaching in the so-called "Outreach" program, a program for talented area high school students and a handful of bored seniors with time and money on their hands.
But he was grateful for the position—authentically grateful. It wasn't as if he were one of the upcoming stars of the piano world. Maybe he had been thought of in that way a few years earlier when he had first graduated from the Leonard Conservatory. Some of his teachers at that time were quite sure that he would have a successful career, maybe even a brilliant one.
But the high expectations had yet to be fulfilled. He was only twenty-seven years old. It wasn't as if he didn’t still have time. But his career trajectory had been less than stellar up to that point.
His teachers at the Conservatory had arranged a few performances for him after graduation, mostly as a concerto soloist with various regional or community orchestras. The performances had gone well enough. Local reviewers had been unstinting in their praise. But David knew better than to take those kinds of accolades seriously. The local conductors he had worked with had been gracious enough—even appreciative of his efforts. But David himself had been far from satisfied. He had wanted to find his own voice, not simply to replicate the standard, generic versions of the standard concertos that everybody else seemed to be churning out. And that he had not done. He had played the notes. He had been reasonably sensitive to the stylistic nuances of each piece he had played. But he had not really made music, or at least not his own music. So even if the regional orchestras and their audiences had been satisfied with his playing, he had not been.
No invitations from major orchestras had been forthcoming. He had not really expected any. His professors at the Leonard Conservatory could do only so much. So he decided to enter some competitions. There, he had mixed success. He had managed to be chosen as an American alternate for the international Radovsky competition in Vienna. But, since he was merely an alternate and he had not performed during that competition, the whole thing had been a strange and even surreal experience. He had already at that point begun to feel the pain and tightness in his hands that continued to besiege him now. The one bright spot had been his discovery—or really rediscovery—of Elizabeth McDermitt, the talented young pianist he had known earlier and with whom he had become reacquainted at the Radovsky Festival. He had cherished hopes that after that competition, the two of them might even be able to get together permanently. And for a while it appeared as if they might. But they had drifted apart once again, her career taking her back to Europe while he languished in the United States, nursing his injured hands.
But at least now he had gainful employment. He might not be playing concerts, but at least he was making a living, although just barely. The rents in Philadelphia were not cheap and teachers in the Outreach program at the conservatory were not particularly well paid. But the job provided him with a studio equipped with a decent piano and time to practice. And it was really necessary for him to practice. While there were no important professional engagements on the horizon, he was obligated to keep in shape well enough to play in the faculty recitals that were presented twice a year. The damage to his hands did not allow him to practice for long periods, but enough for him to prepare for the relatively low key performances he was obligated to contribute to as a condition of his employment at the conservatory.
And this was his practice time. Today. Right now. He had no excuse not to practice, but somehow he dreaded it.
He pressed his hands on the keyboard once again, strumming a C major chord gently.