All Things Considered, He’ll Play the Piano

As the genial host of National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered,” Noah Adams must have more friends than he can imagine. But he’s making a lot of new ones as a result of his new book, “Piano Lessons: Music, Love & True Adventures.”

“It’s amazing what’s happening,” Adams said recently from his home in a Washington, D.C., suburb. “People come up to me after I talk [on the book tour] and tell me a story.

“Each encounter takes about seven or eight minutes. They give me a little bit of their life. It always has to do with music. They could care less about the radio program.”

Adams’ book chronicles his quest to learn the piano as a beginner at age 52. “I’d been thinking about playing all my life,” he said. “It was something I’ve always promised myself.”

Although his musical tastes are wide-ranging, what he specifically wanted to play--besides jazz and blues--was Schumann’s “Traumerei” (Reverie), one of the composer’s “Kinderszenen” (Scenes From Childhood).

“The first time I know I heard it was watching the Horowitz concert,” he said, referring to the triumphant televised return of Russian pianist Vladimir Horowitz to Moscow in 1986. “I was being greedy. I saw those people in the audience crying and I thought, ‘Why? He’s playing a simple piece. I’d like to learn it.’ ”

Since working on it, the piece doesn’t seem so simple to him. “I’m amazed. I feel more emotion in it than I can bring to the keyboard. Physically, I can’t yet release that much emotion. Yet Schumann just tossed it off as a 27-year-old. I know I’ve played it more times than he ever did.”

Although Adams, who turns 54 on Friday, had some lessons when he was 10, they didn’t stick and he didn’t grow up in a musical family.

“My father was a mailman. My mother was a secretary. Her father had a wonderful love of theater and vaudeville and old-time radio. There wasn’t much music in the family. They read and appreciated that. That was the real gift of growing up.”

As a high school senior in 1957, he heard Elvis Presley. “I was really excited about [him]. But also Stan Kenton came to town and played at a local theater. I went to see that. And also the Four Freshman.

“There wasn’t much classical exposure for me. I was in my late 20s before I heard an orchestra for the first time.”

After dropping out of Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond, Adams drifted into a radio career in the early ‘60s. He joined National Public Radio in 1974.

“Music has always been a part of my life, without my realizing it. It’s been part of my work,” said Adams, who has profiled many musicians for NPR features. “Now it’s part of my play.”

The book tracks the year that follows Adams’ initial piano plunge: shelling out more than $11,000 for a Steinway. His first lessons came from a computer program.

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“The attraction of the computer was I can learn at my own pace,” he said. “I have only 10 or 15 minutes available a night. I won’t have to embarrass myself in front of a teacher. A lot of adults who are accomplished in their field don’t want to go back to being sort of inept in front of a teacher.”

Adams made it to lesson 16 (Scott Joplin’s “The Entertainer”), but he wasn’t satisfied.

“The computer was too simplistic musically and too pedantic technically. It was tyrannical about time.”

He turned to a learn-by-ear jazz method on tape. “You see a way into playing by ear and hope that it will easily lead you into this world that’s sometimes metaphysical and miraculous. Now I realize it’s hard work.”

He had almost given up on his dream when he decided to go to a 10-day piano camp in Vermont. He emerged with a shaky but complete “Traumerei” under his belt. The difference, he said, was “real teachers.”

“I’ve been asked, ‘Did you mean to write an inspirational book?’ I said, no. My goal was to write a book that would be interesting about a subject you don’t normally encounter. I didn’t mean to write a book that would inspire adults to study music. But it seems I have.”

After he finished writing, he started taking regular lessons because with the book tour “I knew that sooner or later I’d be playing in front of people and I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t faint dead away. I’ve been taking two lessons a week since about January. We’ve been working on my mistakes in ‘Traumerei.’ ”

And when he has been called upon to play, he says, he’s enjoying it. “I’ve had a lot of fun. I wear a button, ‘I played it perfectly at home.’ I will ask other adults to play, or even kids. I’m playing pretty well, but on some nights it could all fall apart.”

And, yes, he always plays “Traumerei.”

“I played it on NPR’s ‘Morning Edition.’ I didn’t hear the program. I didn’t want to hear it. But some people told me they cried. My God, if after a year and a half, you can make people cry, what is this mystery about music? I don’t have an answer.

“I didn’t play it very well,” he added. “I got messages like, ‘You played the first passage nicely, but the eighth notes, you were just stepping on them a little bit.’ ”

He realizes a year and a half isn’t anywhere near enough time. “Once I get this [book tour] out of the way, what I’m going to have to do is start again,” he said. “I need a better, more solid foundation in theory. I want to play jazz or blues piano by ear. I want to play the first movement of the ‘Moonlight’ Sonata by Christmas. I want to try one of the Mendelssohn ‘Songs Without Words.’ I think I can do it.”

* Noah Adams will speak on “Piano Lessons” Saturday at Haines Hall Room 118, UCLA, as part of the free Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. (800) 528-4637, ext. 72665.