A Piano Lesson with Svetlana Petrovna

As you may have seen in photos of our flat, we have a piano and our landlady, Svetlana Petrovna, is a concert pianist. We have three portraits of her in the living room depicting her playing the piano.

She is a bit effusive and often said when picking up rent that she’d like to teach me to play the piano and that she wanted Christopher to teach her to speak English. I just thought it something she said, but last week she called and asked me to come to the “conservatroi” (said as if in French, despite that we were speaking Russian) for a lesson. I accepted, but must admit to feeling not entirely up for it, unsure how it would be. I enjoy her brief visits to the apartment, but was a little leery of spending quality time. Plus I’ve just started taking lessons again with a lovely woman named Luda, and felt like it might be too much.

However, we pay a fabulous price for this place, so I thought it in our best interest.

A couple of nights ago, she dropped by the apartment to pick up rent. We had a few friends over for dinner and she stayed, drank a glass of wine, then entertained us with three or four songs. She plays very well and is quite dramatic at the keyboard. It was lovely and doubly entertaining to have her playing live and with the paintings of her playing all around us.

Today, I found the National Academy of Music after some trial and error. I first went to what I thought was the academy, but saw it was the Federation for Russian Writers. I asked a man smoking outside if he knew where the Academy was and in broken English and some Russian, he explained where it was. He looked the part of disheveled writer, hair mussed and unwashed, and apologized in Russian that he hadn’t spoken English in ten years.

From there I found the academy. The “conservetroi” has a beautifully restored exterior and is on a street with many luxe shops and cafes. Inside it has a broad staircase and I climbed to the third floor and found Svetlana in studio 49, as promised.

She was with another woman and I told them I would wait until the finished. The woman turned out to be a vocalist and sang a few opera tunes as they rehearsed for an upcoming concert. I sat behind them watching the sunset over the buildings opposite us and listened as they quickly ran through three or four songs. Afterwards, Svetlana gave me some music to study and promised to return soon.

I wrote out the notes, as I’m still not very comfortable reading music and went through the song a bit. She returned and she showed me hand positions. The other woman returned and while they discussed some matters, I practiced more. Then they asked me to resolve a debate about whether the ribbon pin the other woman was wearing was for “Anti-AIDS” or something else. This is when I realized I don’t know “breast cancer” in Russian and had to pantomime something to that effect. Then they asked me which colors meant what, and I explained that at least in the U.S., pink is for breast cancer and red is for HIV/AIDS.

After that, Svetlana took me through two songs and with her accompanying me, the music sounded so beautiful and professional! It turns out she is a great teacher and we had a lot of fun. I’m excited to continue with her and I’ll keep studying with Luda also. It’s sort of like a double lesson, as neither speak English. The only problem is that they use “do ree me fa so la” instead of “c d e, etc.” for notes, but I’ll get it eventually. Well, that’s not the only problem, in that music theory vocabulary I don’t even know in English, but again, whatever. I came to be challenged and a little uncomfortable and so I will be!