From Genius to Old

There was the sound of a piano in the house next door. Yoshi who was sitting at his porch, smoking, was sure it was Thelonious Monk’s version of “‘Round Midnight.” Every night after dinner, he would expect the sound of a piano coming from next door. A neighbour that he had never met before.  

Tonight was no different. But he didn’t expect this song to be played. As if the notes were arrows, it struck his heart one after another. Even if it pained him, Yoshi closed his eyes to savour the music. This was the first song Yoshi ever played.

The moon was full tonight. It shone bright, illuminating the small garden that Yoshi was proud of. The air was still while the song decorated the silence of the night. 

“Do you want to play the piano?”

Without even answering his mother, Yoshi sat on the chair and started playing Monk’s famous tune.

“When did you learn that?”

“The radio in the car. On the way here.”

One could say that was the beginning of the end of his music career. 

Two years after the discovery of his talent, Yoshi was home-schooled fulltime to help him focus on music. He had no say in his future, only his mother did. What was a boy to do at that age? He often asked himself that question. 

Of course, he had seen kids from his neighbourhood played outside in the sun during the summer, while he had to stay in and practised his piano playing with a teacher worth ten-thousand yen per hour. 

If one of the kids had kicked a ball into his house lawn, he or she would hear Yoshi’s playing, only to be interrupted by the teacher’s loud scolding. 

His mother had often said that he had a gift. And that meant he owed it to the world to share it. He understood nothing that his mother had said. His love for music had died from all the forcing and lecturing. What she wanted for Yoshi was actually to fill meaning in her own life. 

“My son, Yoshi is in Juilliard.”

His mother would brag about him whenever she got the chance. That was the thing he hated the most about being a so-called genius. The attention he had from the public was a nuisance as it was. But having his mother brought attention to him was more than he could handle. 

Yoshi had given many warnings to his mother about not bragging with his achievements. His mother could only say that she was too proud of him to not tell anyone. Once when he had too much of his mother’s bragging, he walked back home from a restaurant at which they were having lunch. It took him two hours. 

What fame had taught Yoshi was that it wasn’t forever. He knew a younger genius might come along eventually. All he wanted to do was play music and play with the other kids. 

He knew this day would come eventually. A younger music prodigy had finally came along. She was only three when she started improvising Jazz. Yoshi’s mother had told him that it was okay. He just had to listen to his mother to be successful. 

In the summer of ‘90 when Yoshi finally got a break from music, he decided to travel to Tokyo alone. He didn’t even get any permission from his mother. He went off right after a show and disappeared without a trace. 

As he stepped into the hotel and laid on the comfortable bed, he dreamt of a piano. Its size was ten times bigger than a normal one. All the keys played the same note. All in the note of C. Yoshi walked on the keys slowly at first and then started running. A song that he had never heard before played. It didn’t make sense as all the keys produced the same note. 

When Yoshi was awake, it was almost noon. He sat at the study and wrote a letter to his mother. 

“Dear Mom,

I am here somewhere in the country. I just need a break. Don’t worry about me. I am already 17 after all. 

Your son, 

Teruhashi Yoshi”

Yoshi then stepped out into the city to look for lunch and dropped the letter in the mailbox. Nobody really noticed him for he was wearing a surgical mask with a pair of sunglasses. He was glad to see this many people on the streets. He felt for the first time, he knew what freedom meant outside of Jazz. 

The energy and vibes that fuelled his favourite players are all here, he thought. He understood where their music had come from. Yes, he played the same songs as they did, sometimes note for note. But it was different from his heroes’. Theirs had the spark of life while Yoshi’s was devoid of it.

People who saw genius in young kids are blinded by their dexterity. Yoshi thought that how one made use of experiences was the true measure of a genius. Not the age of a person. How he managed to fool everyone to think that he was a genius was beyond him. 

At seventeen, Yoshi started to believe that he wasn’t one. No one felt anything when they listened to his playing as he grew older. They only saw a young man playing and improvising Jazz. But do they feel life in the notes he played? He questioned himself. 

When he came back to Kyoto, he found his mother to be not her usual controlling self. He didn’t care anymore. He was approaching the legal adult age of eighteen in a couple of weeks. A move to Tokyo on his own was inevitable, even if it meant he had to run away from home, he thought.

“I’m quitting music.”

“It’s such a waste of your talent.”

“Yes, it is.”

“But we’ve invested so much time in it.”

“You have. I was forced to.”

In Tokyo, two years later, Yoshi found himself playing Bill Evan’s “Blue in Green” in a bar in Ginza. He had run away from home and left his mother living alone in her Kyoto house with her newfound boyfriend. He finally escaped. 

Everyone who was at the bar didn’t know who he was. A stage name was the right move made by Yoshi. It was the first idea he had without his mother’s interference.

Seeing that many people socialising while his music played in the background gave him solace. Everyone was here to enjoy each other’s company. It was a nice change to not get the spotlight all to himself. 

Every night after playing at the bar, Yoshi would get a cigar at a nearby convenience store. At the entrance of the store, he saw a music performance poster with a headline: “Come Watch the 3-Year-Old Mozart Perform!” 

At home now smoking his cigar with the sound of a piano coming from next door, he hoped whoever was playing the piano was doing it out of love.