Meet Mrs. Jacqueline Johnson – My Piano Teacher

Mrs. Johnson and I after my first piano recital - June 15, 1986

Mrs. Johnson and I after my first piano recital – June 15, 1986

You know, when I really sat and thought about it, I had NO idea why my parents decided to get me started with piano lessons. I couldn’t remember if it was to keep me busy with some after school activities or what the original reason was exactly. So tonight, I sent Momma Zo a text asking her about it. Her response was:

“I guess you showed an early interest in music. I had my piano… You present it, stimulate it, and wait to see what happens. …The lessons gave you a good foundation.”

…She may have had a point..

Me at age 2 banging on the piano at home.

Me at age 2 banging on the piano at home.

It's safe to say that I was excited about the piano at this age...

It’s safe to say that I was excited about the piano at this age…

Originally, I took lessons with someone else, but I can’t recall much about it at all… All I remember is that I think the lady lived in Oak Park and overall, I don’t think I took lessons there for a long period of time. Momma Zo told me recently via text that…

“The first teacher didn’t want you to leave because you were doing so well!”

So technically, Mrs. Johnson wasn’t my FIRST piano teacher… But it was her teachings that sustained the greatest amount of impact, by far. She was recommended by the mother one of my 1st or 2nd grade classmates – she taught both my classmate and her older brother. Mrs. Johnson’s house was literally right down the street from us – just a block away. If I remember correctly, we used to go every Monday at 4pm. To my parents, this connection was a multiple win for them because her daughter also ended up becoming the babysitter for my younger sister and I.

I’ll admit it… I wasn’t the easiest student to teach simply because I was a kid who found more pleasure in running around the neighborhood with my friends playing sports, freeze tag, and chasing down the ice cream truck whenever it rolled around. Whenever Moms stepped outside that front door to call me inside to practice on the piano, she was usually met with resistance. It always seemed like she had the world’s most impeccable timing because she used to pick the game’s most intense point to yell out… “LORENZOOOO!!!!”

*throws hands up*

“AWWWWWWW MAAAAAAN!!!! Can we get ONE more game in?!!?!!!?”…….

I would go inside the house angry. All of my friends were still outside having a ball, while I’m having to go inside and practice on this ole dumb ass piano. I wasn’t a fan at all. I would head to the basement, sit down in front of the piano and sloppily go through scales, arpeggios, and the songs I needed to learn and memorize for the week. Now, of course, my 6 or 7-year old logic had me thinking I could get away with practicing for what usually turned out to be 10 minutes, walk back upstairs and Moms would just be okay with that. That same young logic also didn’t explain the fact that through the floor and vents in the house she could hear every single thing I was playing and half-assing on……… Needless to say, she wasn’t buying it at all when I would walk back upstairs, walk up to her and say, “I’m finished!” The moment of truth would always come during the weekly lessons at Mrs. Johnson’s house. I can only imagine how embarrassed my mother was when I would sit down at the piano ill-prepared during lesson time. I get it now… I had not a clue back then. Mrs. Johnson had to have been one patient woman with me because I had more of a hate than love relationship with the piano… I mean, shit…. Some of those songs were DIFFICULT. Plus, at the time, my hands weren’t big enough to reach and play octaves as some of the songs and drills called for. So looking back on it… this era served as a ‘boot camp’ for me on the instrument. Mrs. Johnson challenged me and remained patient through all of my episodes of resistance. She would look at me like…’Alright, cry it on out… But when you finish, we’ve got a song to wrap up.” Thank GOD for her persistence and musical education as well as for my parents’ encouragement to continue because…. well…. now, this is how I make a living.

How crazy is that?

Momma Zo could have let me get my way and allowed me to play outside until that street light came on everyday… Mrs. Johnson could have been someone who simply just gave in to my being hard-headed, but instead she pushed me harder. Maybe they knew something even back then, I don’t know… But whatever it was, today I am GRATEFUL. Not only did it impact my musicianship, but I even utilized some of her “I’m not really feeling any of your excuses” practices when I taught music in the classroom and today while teaching private lessons. While we have since lost touch over the years, but it would be dope if somehow she caught wind of this piece just so she could see how successful she was at influencing her sometimes difficult young piano student.

Someone find Mrs. Jacqueline Johnson for me please as I would LOVE to play for her …I think that’s the least I can do.

The original program from my very first piano recital.

A copy of the original program from my very first piano recital.

Music Moves…

Music. Moves.

Music moves so much that some of us have a handful of songs that we can’t even listen to in public explaining to others why you’re looking crazy by holding your eyes wide open in an attempt not to drop those tears that have been gathering since the music started is never quite on anyone’s ‘to do list’.

Music moves us to get our asses up and running in the morning…

Music moves you into a place of peace in order to avoid putting hands on people at work who you want to choke the absolute shit out of on a daily basis. Sometimes it serves as a necessary part of simply getting through your day…

Music moves us to reflect and to reminisce. It’s crazy how you can hear a song and quickly be dropped off at a very specific time in your life. How many times have you found yourself saying, “Oh woooow, this takes me right back to……”?

I’m gonna share this particular story about how music moved me one day while I was still teaching in the classroom – but not in the traditional “I heard a song and was moved”-type of way. This was actually via a student of mine, matter of fact… He was my best student. Like everyone else who came through my classroom, he knew that I was a working musician who toured, released music, etc. and he would always inquire about my shows and the music, in general. Remembering this, at the end of one school year, I surprised him by passing him copies of three of my albums (Passion & Definition, Re:Definition and Freelance). I let him know how proud I was of his successful school year in the music room and encouraged him to keep up his great work. We chatted a little while longer before he headed home for the summer… And to be honest, I didn’t think too much more about it after that… I mean giving praise to kids who are doing a good job in the classroom is all in a day’s work, right?

During that summer, I was in the middle of taking more classes at George Washington University for my Master’s degree in Special Education Children with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders. It was actually dope the way it was set up. The professors would come to US at OUR school and teach so convenience was completely in our favor in regards to not having to travel down overly-congested ass Connecticut Ave. to GW’s campus to attend classes. The thing was, I took my summers off every year so in order to continue with the degree and graduate on time with the teachers I started the program with, I would have to spend some of my time back at the school. Maaaaaaaan, I didn’t want to do that!! Didn’t y’all hear what the late, great Bernie Mac said?? “When Black folks ‘break’… We BREAK!!” He was telling jokes, but he wasn’t joking… I wanted NO parts of that school during my cherished summers off. Eh… With that being said….. my ass was right back at the school taking classes with everyone else during my summer break. Well, this one particular day after one of the classes was over, I decided to head downstairs to the music room just to check on things and make sure my spot was still in order. I got a knock at the door….. I thought to myself, “Dammit, who the hell is this?! I’ll bet it’s someone who saw me come into the room and now they want to try and come in here and bang on the drums…” ……Opened the door and saw that it was the student who I gave all of the music to. Helluva relief…. We chatted for a second to catch up, but I could tell that he was a little hyped up about something. He wasted no time cutting the conversation short with, “Hey, Mr. Ferguson, I want you to listen to this!” He proceeded to plug his guitar into one of the amps on the floor. I responded with, “Ah ok, what you got? You been working on some new material?” …Not quite. BUT, what he began to play rendered me absolutely motionless and speechless. My jaw damn near hit the floor as I realized that he was playing parts of songs from the albums of mine that I had given him a month prior! I’ll tell you what, after experiencing this level of extreme humility I have realized that it will automatically diminish your vocabulary, because all I could come up with to say in response was the SAT-vocab section worthy, “Yooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!” …while repeating, “Come on man… Come ON man, really?!” It was CRAZY. He told me that he had been using the CDs to practice on during the summer. WOW. Listen man, lemme tell y’all something real quick… I’m not a crier, but this damn near got me good that day. Do you understand what it means to have a student of yours who has pretty much changed his life around because of the music instrument you put and helped keep in his hand and now he wants to get better by learning music you wrote….???!! And he plays back to you what he has taught himself by ear??!!?!? Not only was this a highlight in my teaching career, but a highlight in my LIFE.

Once again, Music. MOVES. Music is moving… Allow it to work in you.