Jubilate Mimi

The English poet Christopher Smart, confined to an English madhouse in the 18^th century, wrote about his cat Jeoffry in his “Jubilate Agno”, an ode to the Divine found in the natural world.

A busy music studio in Montara is far away in time and space from Bedlam in the 1700s, but a Montara cat named Mimi seems to consider keeping peace and order her primary job. It was not always so.

The San Francisco SPCA Maddie Center, where we first met Mimi, is a testament to the generosity of animal lovers. Individual air-conditioned light-flooded pet apartments have climbing trees, carpeted towers, videos of birds and fish, running water and fresh plants. The animals have social workers.

In fact, most of the cats at the Maddie Center are so comfortable that they seem to have little interest going anywhere else. Mimi, then called Millie, had only recently come to the shelter and did not yet consider it home. She had been moved to San Francisco from a Sonoma facility at the age of seven months. She was born September 3, 1998, and was adopted by us April 2, 1999 after we filled out questionnaires, submitted to an interview, signed papers, proved that we had a home, and paid $35.38 in fees. The Maddie Center employees informed us that they followed up on adoptions and would reclaim the animal if terms of the adoption were not met.

The name Millie didn’t suit this grey tortoiseshell at all. There was something French about her, something about the way she sashayed about and looked at us over her shoulder. We wanted to give her a French name, Solange, but the music students couldn’t pronounce it. Since French cat owners call “Mi-mi-mi” instead of “Here, Kitty-kitty”, she became Mimi.

At first, she was a daredevil, climbing up to the roof, refusing to come down, scaling one of our 80-foot-tall cypress trees. She would not drink water from a bowl, she often bit the hand that fed her; she would not sit in a lap or come when called. The sound of the cello drove her insane, and she would jump from table to chair to piano to stereo until the music stopped or she was evicted. The sound of a violin would send her straight to the door. In a twelve-by-eighteen-foot studio with a grand piano, a bounding cat was impossible to ignore.

However, Mimi had two redeeming qualities. She was beautiful, and she loved children. Like Christopher Smart’s Jeoffry, Mimi became “an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon.” When music students showed up for their lessons, Mimi would greet them at the door and escort them to the piano, rubbing their legs as they walked.

Over time, she acquired other virtues. Jeoffry, Christopher Smart said, was docile and could learn certain things. ”For he can set up with gravity which is patience upon approbation.” Over time, Mimi learned to tolerate and even like the music in her new home. She would take her place atop the piano and listen attentively, sometimes commenting on the performances with an appreciative Meow. She learned to purr.

She began to like even the violin and once made a fool of herself over the Bach double violin concerto, weaving between the legs of the teenaged players, climbing on the piano bench, rubbing her face on the music score. The anxious performers discovered that it is difficult to be nervous when you are laughing.

Singers, rehearsing, have sung to Mimi as she gazes into their faces from her perch. Although she isn’t allowed to nap in the cello case, she now sleeps through most cello music. She allows small children to use her as a pillow.

Smart’s Jeoffry would “not do destruction, if he is well-fed, neither will he spit without provocation.” Although she is fed exclusively on weight-control kibble, Mimi has clearly outgrown her tree-climbing days. Now that she weighs 20 pounds, confrontations with other cats are out of the question: They stay well away from the giant kitty, even though she seems wistful as she watches them.

Since her only companions are humans, Mimi has taken on some human characteristics. She answers when spoken to. She almost always comes when called. She will sit politely at the dinner table without begging. She kisses. But like Jeoffrey, her best trait is that she can tread to all the measures upon the music.

(Reprinted from June Morrall's Half Moon Bay Memories)

Lesson Ten: Books

Yesterday my friend and fellow music teacher Marc phoned to ask me about a piano method book he had been reading. The book recommended playing all 24 scales with one finger until each was correctly learned. Only then would the poor student begin playing scales with standard fingering.

This is a great example of misinformation and wasted effort. It might result in learning the various key signatures, but it would involve more un-learning than learning in the long run, and I would guarantee that most people would give up scales before they mastered the 24.

The best books I have ever found about playing the piano are comic books, Peter Coraggio's series published by Neil A. Kjos called "The Art of Piano Performance", illustrated by Jon J. Murakami. The books are entertaining, of course, but also technically sound, comprehensive and useful. Until you are ready for the Oxford Musical Dictionary, Peter Coraggio's "Imagery in Music" is the only music dictionary you need.

I grew up with the old John Thompson red books which began with "Teaching Little Fingers To Play" and ended with Grade Five, but in my own teaching I use multi-key methods such as those published by Alfred and Hal Leonard (as well as a lot of individually-written sheet music). The old method books are based on playing in the key of C or mostly on the white keys, which trains the hand very early on to use a curved position because of the short thumb and pinky and the longer fingers in between.

Students who have grown up with multi-key methods are not afraid of the black keys, and their hands are accustomed to the various configurations and shapes involved in playing patterns and chords. The muscles remember. Although I find many beginners play by the numbers (now don't deny it; I know you do), at least they are getting an idea of intervals and the up-and-down patterns which they do not get when playing by "letters" or staying for a couple of years in a white-note position.

I think there is value in being able to play all the five-finger patterns, whether by tablature (with the keys shown on the page), ear or note. This leads right away to a muscular knowledge of all 24 major and minor chords, and this is the basis of keyboard harmony.