I am a Practice Room: a guest post by Dr. Dave Deason
Anyone who studied music in a school setting is familiar with practice rooms—tiny spaces containing little more than a piano, a chair, and perhaps a music stand. Many have written odes to the piano, but it took the creative mind of composer Dave Deason, in this light-hearted essay, to extend the same courtesy to the practice room.
Dave Deason has been a regular on No Dead Guys. I’ve featured many of his compositions in posts dedicated to music by living composers. In his interview, Dialogue With Vladimir (aka Composer Dave Deason), readers were introduced to both his brilliance and zany humor, and his guest post, A Schenkerian Review of The Waco Variations blended his encyclopedic understanding of Schenkerian analysis with the plot of my novel, The Waco Variations.
Dave and I have been friends for over twenty years. He was the first No Dead Guy to take a chance on me by hiring me to record his piano album, Oregon Impressions: the piano music of Dave Deason. From his superbly crafted music to his bubbling zest for the absurdities in life, his notes and words remind us to lighten up, share a laugh, and then go out and create something meaningful.
I am a Practice Room: a guest post by Dave Deason
I am a practice room. So, you say, what is a practice room? What is so special about a practice room? Am I any different from any other cubicle that can be called a “room”? These and other questions will be answered as you read my story.
I, as my many siblings, was conceived in the mind of a nondescript person, who was asked to create a nondescript building on a nondescript campus of a nondescript university in a nondescript state on a nondescript planet. However, I hasten to add that neither I, nor any of my siblings, am NOT nondescript, not at all. Yet, it was clear early on, however, that I was to become a room which would be virtually identical with many other rooms in this nondescript building.
But what kind of room was I to become? After all, my siblings and I could have become one of many kinds of a room, including not just a practice room, but an ensemble room, an office, a janitor room, a storeroom, or a host of other room types, including the most dreaded room of all, a bathroom! In fact, one of my brothers did become a bathroom, and I heard no end of complaints from him about all the twisted pipes, the inevitable water leaks, the incessant noise, and—worst of all—the eternal smells! Oh, the indignity of it!
For a time, I actually thought that I was overlooked by these nondescript people, as nothing was placed in me, unlike some of my brothers who had various objects placed in them. But I did receive a desk, a chair, later to be followed by a non-descript music stand. I did see a few of my brothers and sisters getting pianos, even including a few grand pianos. I found myself often experiencing envy, jealous that they had such splendid pianos in their midst, while I didn’t have a piano at all. For a while, I began to think that something was wrong with me. What finally did grace my space during this bleak period? An occasional flute, perhaps even an oboe or clarinet, would briefly invade me. On a bad day, I would even be invaded by a dreaded bassoon, or even worse, a vocalist! It was all I could do to keep my beautiful walls from crumbling into rubble when they came around.
But nothing could prepare me for the tumultuous onslaught of those horrid brass instruments. I found that I could tolerate, if I got enough rest, a horn, or even a muted trumpet or trombone. But the tuba?? My skin would crawl enough that I became afraid that the paint would peel off my very bones. After all, it was only the 2 x 4s that kept me from collapsing into dust.
Then one day, a piano was rolled into me. Should I have been pleased with this development? Well, let me tell you, the piano was one of those horrible upright pianos that looked like a reject from a local Baptist church that had a blind date with a wrecking ball. What an embarrassment! Along with one of those hideous rolling stools that leaned to the side when anyone sat on it, no one ever thought to tune that poor beast of a piano. My experience from that and later pianos rolled into me, was that these pianos resisted tuning like trying to get an eight-year-old to sit in a dentist chair! The highest strings sounded like a group of drunk honeybees attempting to sing in the aforementioned Baptist church. And the bass strings? Oh boy, I felt the need to prepare myself for a major earthquake.
To make matters worse, no one who played on it had the slightest respect for it, as an occasionally frustrated young man in a fit of rage when the music was not going well, would pound the keys with a fist that probably could have knocked out the school’s champion boxer! But what about the girls? How did they treat that unfortunate piano? Well, I can’t say, as I never saw a female ever play on that piano. So, I gave them the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps this is the place to add that other activities were, shall we say, ‘practiced’ during this period. I still do not understand how the Professors could ever create an 'examination'on these ‘activities’ I witnessed.
Finally, after several other pianos took residence in my humble space, one day a beautiful thing finally happened—a grand piano became a part of my life. Oh, the Glory of it! I freely admit that, for the first time in my life, I was proud of my new appendage! Not only did some of my siblings exhibit envy toward me, but the quality of practice of those who practiced on my new piano improved as I watched. These individuals even seemed to dress better, as if they were preparing for a future life that, sadly, didn’t include me.
But, you know, I found that I didn’t mind. As long as that grand piano continued to exist in me, I felt that my existence had a purpose, that I was justified in my desire to be more than just a nondescript room. I realized that it was a wonderful thought for a practice room such as myself, who endured long periods of despair that I might be destined to live the nondescript life that beset not only many of my siblings, but to untold thousands of cousins who undoubtedly had ambitions to become more than just a mere room.
I am a Practice Room!
Dave Deason: I am a composer, pianist, organist, woodwind player, and retired college professor. I was born in South Dakota in 1945, reared in South Carolina and Florida. If pressed, I would say that I am, at heart, a Southerner. Although classically trained, I began playing Jazz piano professionally while in high school, playing up and down the Florida coast with my Quintet, where I was the pianist and occasionally the clarinet player. I hold the B.M. and M.M. degrees from Florida State University, and the D.M.A. from the Ohio State University. My teaching background includes Lander University, Montclair University, the New School, and the Ohio State University.
Along the way, I received numerous composition and teaching awards, including numerous ASCAP awards, “Meet the Composer” grants, third prize in the American Bandmasters Association Competition (1987), the Oregon Music Teachers’ Association Composer of the Year (2000), and a National Teaching Fellow designation (1984).
I compose in all genres of music, including classical chamber ensembles, concert band scores, piano music, Jazz pieces, vocal works, and film scores. My musical language features a distinct Jazz influence, often including high-pressure very rhythmic fast movements, yet often tempered by lyrical Ballad-style slow movements.
Performers of my humble efforts include Wynton Marsalis, Ramon Ricker, Chien-Kwan Lin, Dave Demsey, George Gabor, Steve Mauk, Jerry Willard, Don Butterfield, Jason Byrnes, the late Meir Rimon, Craig Kirchhoff, the Amherst Sax Quartet, and especially the Verismo Trio, among others. My “Gossamer Rings” for Soprano Saxophone and Band was premiered in 1983 by the US Navy Band. It has since been performed more than a dozen times at several universities around the US.
My compositions have been heard in New York’s Carnegie Recital Hall, Town Hall, the Juilliard School, Eastman School, the Manhattan School, Indiana University, Michigan State University, the Ohio State University, and in many other universities and cities across the US, Brazil, and Israel. My Carnival was recorded by the Eastman Saxophone Project in 2012. My Trio for Flute, Soprano Saxophone, and Piano was recently recorded by the wonderful Verismo Trio of the University of Wyoming.
I produced two CDs, Oregon Impressions, and From Another Time and Other Original Ballads for Piano and String Orchestra, with myself as piano soloist, accompanied by a string orchestra. Both CDs received very positive reviews, including Jazz Police and JazzChicago.net.
My wife, Mary, and I with our Scottish Terriers recently moved to Kentucky after living 24 years in Portland, Oregon.
Photo by Andrea De Santis, courtesy of UpSplash