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William F.Buckley, Jr.—PianoPlayer

-By Ed Shanaphy

A music publisher has numerous oddities cross his desk, from friends and strangers alike, that are “guaranteed to make a killing” in the music biz. These can range from being a song that “my next door neighbor wrote,” to a sure-fire, revolutionary, don’t-need-toread- a-note-of-music method for learning to play the piano (which would hardly do one much good when purchasing a copy of “Misty” in a music shop).

Songwriters, especially, are subjected to a barrage of such things. Sammy Cahn, the great lyricist who was a contributor to our magazine and one of its staunch supporters, was subject to endless amounts of incoming mail replete with melodies, lyrics, song title ideas, song concepts, musical comedy plots, you name it, from total strangers. Aware that we live in a highly litigious society, and that an idea can often be challenged for its originality, Sammy would return the mail unopened, accompanied by a polite letter of explanation. This way, if at some point in the future Sammy might coincidentally write a song similar to what had been sent to him, he avoided legal complications.

We have adopted Sammy’s approach somewhat here. However, there did come a time when an idea for assisting in the reading of piano music, a crutch, so to speak, was brought to my attention. Our magazines were at one time printed by the same printer who printed National Review, the conservative weekly founded by William F. Buckley, Jr., who recently passed away. As a result, I became friendly with the then-publisher of NR, Ed Capano, We would share ideas and thoughts regarding the magazine business, mixed in with an occasional round of golf. He told me that Buckley, also a noted amateur harpsichordist and pianist, had created a music reading assist he had been using himself for years, and that he was eager to have other keyboard players benefit from it. Could we publish it? In spite of the fact that I always shy away from musical gimmickry, I went down to the National Review offices on 35th Street and met with Bill.

There were several forces at work that made me eager to take this on: At our first meeting, Bill asked if I was sure I wanted to get involved. “There are legions of people out there who don’t like me,” he said. But there are so many who do, I countered, and besides, amateur pianists would buy a book by Dracula if it helped them to be good sightreaders. (I didn’t say that.) Bill loved Bach; playing Bach, listening to Bach, analyzing Bach. I was intrigued that a man as intellectually astute as he would have some very basic problems in learning a piece of music. One of the problems he wanted to solve was being able to anticipate the crossing of fingers, to be aware ahead of time when running out of fingers in the middle of a passage. Along with this, he found that he needed help remembering if a note, when it appeared with no accidental, i.e., without a sharp or flat sign, was an altered note either by virtue of the key signature, or by having been previously altered within the measure.

I refrained myself from saying that millions of pianists have coped with the system as is; that memory training regarding altered notes is part of the process, and looking ahead just slightly is basic to reading music, and is the solution for imminent finger crossings. What Bill’s system entailed was drawing a circle around the fingering of the note immediately preceding the crossing finger, which would be the alert that a crossing was occurring on the next note, and coloring all altered notes red, whether they appeared with an accidental or not. My silent opinion was that his system obviated the need for developing these two essential reading skills—looking ahead and instant recall—not a good thing to do, and it truly busied up the page with more highway signs than I, for one, could readily compute. I had enough problems with the notes.

In spite of my misgivings, we forged ahead with the project and published books with pieces by Bach and Mozart as a test. Even those friends of Bill who were accomplished pianists gave the system mixed reviews. But there were also many who wrote to us saying that they found the books very helpful. What we have learned since is that, system or no system, classical piano folios are a difficult sell. Sadly, the Buckley books have gone out of print and we dissolved our partnership amicably.

One may ask, since I was not truly convinced that we had a viable system, why I agreed to proceed with the project at all. Historically, I had a very soft spot in my heart for the guy. When I attended college too many years ago in Washington, D.C. , a group of us went to see a performance of the improv troupe, Second City, at the Shoreham Hotel. In our group was a lovely coed I had had in my crosshairs for some time. She was in the Drama department, I in the Music department. Luckily we were seated next to each other in the lobby at intermission. Now was my chance! While searching for what we might have in common, William Buckley’s name came up. We discovered that we had both read his first book, God And Man At Yale, and, indeed, had an admiration for him. We were off and running. She and I subsequently did college shows together, the actress and the piano player, and in later years I played for her on- and off-Broadway auditions. This morning our grandchildren woke us up at an ungodly hour!

Thanks Bill.

The Steinway Library of Piano Music

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