Cuttin Loose

Walking down the street in a picturesque little town on the Oregon Coast yesterday, I saw a little boy lean over a flower box and sniff a flower. When his grandmother asked him what the flower smelled like, he answered, "Butterflies."
When I was a kid, I took piano lessons from Mrs. Kieffer. The lesson went like this. Mrs. Kieffer put three buttons at the end of the piano. I played my lesson. Every time I played perfectly, she removed a button. Every time I made a mistake, she put one back. When the buttons were gone, she played my assignment for the next week so I'd know how it should sound.
Not practicing enough meant humiliatingly long lessons. Practicing at least an hour a day usually resulted in a three-plays-and-you're-out lesson.
When I was a teenager, and had three buttoned my way through all the John W. Schaum piano books, I took lessons from Merv Kennedy, a late sixties beat whose furniture consisted of a Hammond B3, Steinway, vibes, drum set and a Rhodes piano. He was Steve Allen's piano teacher. He was a studio cat. He was very, very cool.
When I auditioned for him (no button removed!), he asked me if I had been potty trained at gunpoint. What?
R-e-l-a-x, he said, as he took my hands in his, and banged (!) them on the piano. Let's try this...and he'd just doodle around until he found something remarkable, then made a song with it.
Nothing written, no charts, just theory. First lesson, r-e-l-a-x.
Merv stuck with me for longer than Mrs. Kieffer, and took me to hear the best musicians I ever heard. Some were professional musicians, some were janitors with extraordinary talent. Sometimes the janitors were better.
He helped me develop an ear for good music. He introduced me to people I would never had met, all with one thing in common - they were very talented musicians.
But, he never rid me of the deeply seeded button lessons. No amount of cajoling or laughing or ignoring would convice me that I hadn't made a "mistake." It was in too deep.
I could never think flowers smelled like butterflies.