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Acclaimed Pianist Tickles The Ivories At Music Showcase

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By BARBARA ROUTEN, Tribune correspondent

Published: October 31, 2007

BRANDON - How did internationally known contemporary pianist Jim Brickman come to give a workshop for local piano students and teachers at the Music Showcase in Brandon?

'To be honest, I have worked for over a year and a half to get Brickman here, and when God is ready, things happen,' said Heather Ochalek, owner and president of Music Showcase. Ochalek said she and her husband, Andy, general manager of the store, have been fans forever and have more than 16 of his CDs and all of his books.

'Our wedding was all his music,' she said. 'We are not friends of his but have met several times.'

About 100 people in the audience Oct. 15 included very young students, teens, families, adult students and local piano teachers. Theo Boylan of Piano Distributors on Brandon Town Center Drive provided a Yamaha C7 grand piano for Brickman to play.

Brickman walked out onstage, sat at the piano and, with eyes closed, a smile from ear to ear and his head dancing back and forth, began to play - play as in have fun.

'For me, playing is all about joy or having fun,' Brickman said.

And he does, even though when he started he 'took piano from a nightmare teacher. She used to vacuum during my piano lessons,' he said. 'She wasn't trying to give me the experience of music, she was teaching the language ... After a couple of years, the teacher told my mom, 'Your son doesn't have any talent. He'll never be able to play the piano.''

'I didn't connect with the written music, and my rhythm wasn't good,' he said. 'But my mom's reply was perfect. She told her, 'It doesn't matter if he's the best in the world at it. He gets joy from it. I want him to keep taking lessons.''

His second teacher was a jazz-playing graduate student from the Cleveland Institute of Music. Brickman discovered he could imitate the music if the teacher played it. 'It was hard, but you have to keep on doing what you love to do,' Brickman said. 'I never imagined as a kid that I'd be onstage. Not everyone has to be onstage.'

He continued with his music education at the Cleveland Institute and then at Case Western Reserve University, also in Brickman's native Cleveland.

'The training taught me the language of music. Knowing how to speak the language is important. If you don't understand it, it's hard to speak it, and tricks take the place of substance.'

He wrote his first song at age 12. His advice to aspiring songwriters: 'The simplest melody makes the greatest song. ... The nuances are in the silences. ... Combine the simple, the complex and the silences.'

Near the end of the session, Brickman answered questions from the audience. One person asked how long it takes him to write a song.

'Anywhere from an hour to a year,' he said with a laugh. He said his song 'Valentine' was written in about an hour and a half, but then he played a melody and said he wasn't sure what to do with it.

'I'll probably still be wondering this time next year,' he said. 'Inspiration doesn't have a deadline.'

He said he gets ideas for songs from 'whatever inspires me - a beautiful day, relationships, a word someone says.'

'Observe,' he said. 'If you take in the world, you'll take in ideas.'

He ended the hour with a medley of music from 'Beauty and the Beast' requested by 10-year-old Alicia Barrios of Riverview, and his original song, 'The Promise.'

Michaela Phillips, a sixth-grader at Nativity Catholic School in Brandon and student of piano instructor Daniel Swartwood at Music Showcase, said the workshop was great.

'I liked how he played 'Beauty and the Beast' and turned it into one of his own songs,' she said.
Boylan said she enjoyed the workshop, 'especially the close-up atmosphere. He's quite natural in his approach. He's also honest about his personal style of composing and playing. His melodies have a beautiful, lingering quality.'

'It was really interesting for students to hear about his time as a piano student, that he went through the same learning steps,' said music teacher and church accompanist Betty Toombs of Brandon. 'And joy - it's all about the fun of it.'

Library Hosts New Local Author

SEFFNER - The Seffner-Mango Branch Friends of the Library held a fundraiser and book signing Oct. 16 with Seffner author, piano teacher and occupational therapist Debora M. Coty. Friends President Charmaine Andrews said the event 'was the best program that the fledgling Friends of the Library has hosted since chartering.'

Thirty-two adults and 10 young people attended. Coty amused her audience with an educational and humorous PowerPoint presentation, A Writer's Journey: Traversing Pinnacles and Potholes on the Road to Publication.

The evening closed with refreshments and Coty signing her book, 'The Distant Shore,' a slice of Florida historical fiction. The book has been in print almost six weeks and has sold more than 500 copies.

'A wonderful start for a first book!' Coty said. 'I started writing four and a half years ago when my youngest chick flew the coop and currently have three additional books under contract for publication within the next two years.'

She also has more than 70 magazine, newspaper, anthology and trade journal articles under her belt.

'I have more than 30 speaking engagements scheduled this year with writers groups, civic organizations, churches, women's groups, schools and libraries,' she said.

'The Distant Shore' may be purchased at Victorian Grace Tea House, 616 N. Parsons Ave., Brandon, or Miracles, 10335 Cross Creek Blvd., Suite H, Tampa. The book also can be ordered at www .barnesandnoble.com, www .amazon.com or www.debora coty.com.

Send news and photos of community interest to Barbara Routen at The Tampa Tribune, 505 W. Robertson St., Brandon FL 33511, e-mail neighbors@tampabay.rr .com or call (813) 657-4531

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