Chapter 14: 13

Chapter 13 – Lesson at the Jacquelyn House

By the time the afternoon lesson began, Ms. Jacquelyn had indeed made her way out for business, biting her handkerchief as she departed.

The widow’s parched infatuation seemed to have been adequately moistened.

“Ha, you know, Adonis… you’re just too handsome and you can have your life being a cakewalk.”

While seated at the piano, Angela’s lack of sleep had dissipated, leaving her instead with an unresolved ill-feeling, something she couldn’t quite grasp.

“That’s not true. Depending on the circumstance, I may be stalked, or someone’s else husband may hold a grudge against me. It’s tricky to adjust to the situation.”

The tuner/piano instructor was flipping through the sheet music of the competition piece, as if to say, “Well, rather than focusing on such things, let’s start with the lesson.”

As expected of a good-looking man, he didn’t deny the fact that he was attractive. He knew what he was doing.

“Even so… I’ve been hearing rumors about you on the wives network, but I never dreamed you would show up at my house. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“A surpriseー.”

“…”

“What’s with that look, you look stunned. Aren’t you happy?”

With a thump, Adonis closed the sheet music and drew his face nearer to peer into Angela’s face.

“I’m happy though.”

His innocent, boyish smile sent her heart racing even though she knew it was coming. Angela immediately looked away and mused.

I guess being good-looking is a skill.

“Now, before the lesson commences… I was wondering about the Hanon exercises that you have here.”

“Oh, that’s what my current teacher told me to do for keystroke enhancement――”

Adonis dumped the Hanon into the trash without asking any questions.

“From what age have you been playing piano, Angela?”

“Uh, three years old, I think? I don’t really recall.”

“You’ve played Hanon and Czerny often since you were a child, haven’t you? The main purpose of these finger-strengthening exercises is to fortify the feeble ring finger and the left hand, which is inferior to the dominant hand.”

“It’s to enhance the strength of the fingers as a whole and to improve the accuracy of fingering, right…?”

“Yes. The ring finger, in particular, is a finger that cannot be moved independently unless trained from childhood. Therefore, playing Hanon or Czerny as a child is effective, but there is absolutely no necessity for an adult to do so.”

Angela was showing the movement of her ring finger. Moving it itself seemed like something anyone could do, yet whether or not this was moving independently, was not clear to her.

While she was moving her ring finger with a perplexed expression on her face, Adonis showed the tips of his five fingers, attaching each fingertip to the other.

“Try attaching the five fingertips to each other with both hands like this.”

Angela imitated this and attached five fingertips of each hand to one another. From thumb to thumb, pinky to pinky.

A dome formed by the fingers was created in front of her eyes.

“Keep going, but bend only the middle fingers downwards and attach the backs of the middle fingers to each other. Like this.”

With only the middle fingers of both hands bent downward, Angela brought the backs of the fingers together.

“Keep the other fingers in that position, but release only the thumbs. Once done, put it back, followed by the index finger. Then the index finger, the pinky, and finally, the ring finger.”

Although the other three fingers can be released swiftly, moving the ring finger proved to be a struggle.

Angela could barely release it, but in comparison to the other fingers, this was extremely exhausting.

“Wow, why is this so hard?”

“To state it simply, with the exception of the thumb, all four fingers are connected by a tissue called tendon, and the index and pinky fingers have separate muscles to stretch them independently. This is absent in the middle and ring fingers. Hence, whenever the middle finger is bent, the ring finger is pulled in the direction of the bend by the tendon, and cannot be fully extended.”

“Hmm, but if I use my ring finger to attach my back, my middle finger can still move with ease…”

“Yes. Since the middle finger is stronger, it can resist the movement of the ring finger. But on the other hand, the ring finger exerts less force than the middle finger, so it cannot resist the movement of the middle finger… Most people, including me, cannot move the ring finger in this state.”

Adonis made the finger dome a second time and attempted to release the ring finger. However, his middle finger only slightly twitched, and his ring finger did not budge.

“Since you have been playing the piano from childhood, your ring finger is already strong enough and you have developed muscles that enable you to move it independently. After all this time, playing exercises specialized for the ring finger and the left hand will only tire your fingers before the performance and increase the risk of tenosynovitis. Since tenosynovitis never recovers, any unnecessary overuse of the fingers should be avoided at all costs.”

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Once again, Angela repeated attaching and releasing the tip of her ring finger. While she was able to do this, there was definitely an odd sensation of fatigue accumulating in her fingers.

This must mean that her fingers will be overworked if she persists in doing this.

“The next thing is the height of the chair.”

Adonis pointed to the piano stool where Angela was sitting.

The Jacquelyn family’s piano seat was not a couch style like the one in “Crazy Louis,” but a single-seat piano stool with an adjustable seat. Most of the competitions involved the use of these piano stools.

Until now, Angela has never paid attention to the height of the piano chair.

She wanted to start playing straight away after sitting down at the piano and figured that since some chairs were not adjustable, it would be pointless to deliberately vary the height of the chair.

“You remember how easy it was to grasp the octaves yesterday? This was accomplished through the proper angle of the wrist approaching the keyboard and the way the keys were struck utilizing the weight of the arm. If you are not sitting at that height, you are bound to revert all over again.”

In a hurry, she adjusted the height of the seat to adjust the position. However, she was unsure of how much was considered appropriate.

As Adonis watched her, he adjusted the height of the chair so that the keyboard and her elbow were at the same height.

“Here, it seems about right.”

Angela tapped the octave a few times for confirmation that she could grab it in the same way as last night.

“Remember your present eye level, the distance from the keyboard… Yes, then lower the chair to its lowest height and match it again.”

She adjusted the height as she was told and extended both hands to the keyboard. Using a piano instruction book as a ruler, Adonis checked the height.

“A bit lower… yes, right here.”

It was difficult to adjust to the optimum position right away. She practiced by pressing the knob on the chair over and over again so that she could get it aligned in one shot.

Despite an hour has passed after the start of the piano lesson, Angela had not even played a single bar, but she was seized by a strange sense of contentment.

First of all, the lesson with Adonis was not limited to playing a piece of music but also involved instruction on the meaning of regular piano practice and the way to face the challenges of playing the piano.

He not only taught her to do it but also provided explanations as to why she should do it or why it was wrong.

Adjusting chair height, the structure of the fingers, plus the fear of tenosynovitis from excessive practice. These were all things Angela had never experienced from any of her previous teachers.

“Okay, now I want you to play the piece for the competition all the way through but keep your arms relaxed and focus the weight on your fingertips.”

While preparing the sheet music, Angela abruptly became aware of this.

“Huh? This is not ‘Piano Solo for Right Hand’?”

“Now I’m a tuner as well as a piano teacher, at the request of the Jacquelyn family. As for the right hand piece, I’ll teach that at night.”

After putting the sheet music on the music stand, Angela performed the piece that was assigned for the competition.

It was a mysterious sensation.

Even though she disliked this piece, it felt like it would be a great piece once she mastered it.

Ms. Jacquelyn was dumbfounded for a while after seeing Angela’s performance when she returned. On closer inspection, she seemed to be basking in the afterglow, with tears in the corners of her eyes.

Angela had beads of sweat on her forehead and a flushed face as she waited for Ms. Jacquelyn to speak.

“What do you think?”

Adonis, who was sitting next to her, called out.

“It’s as if a different person has risen today compared to yesterday. The piano sounded intense, soft, and… emotional.”

Ms. Jacquelyn was so pumped up that it seemed as if she was trying to squeeze out her impressions.

She probably had not anticipated that a half-day session with a different piano teacher would produce such a dramatic change in Angela’s piano performance.

“There is still a month to go before the London competition. Things can still be improved. You have discovered a remarkably talented person.”

“After witnessing her performance, I can believe those words… I have high hopes for her.”

“Then…”

“Yes, by all means. I’ll be counting on you as well starting tomorrow.”

On that day, Adonis became Angela’s sixth full-time piano teacher.

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