Edition: U.S. / Global


By MARLENE SHEEHAN; Marlene Sheehan lives in Southport.
Published: August 30, 1987

LAST week, as I discreetly dabbed at an emotional tear of joy at my sixth grader's violin concert and inwardly forgave him for getting a D in the subject I teach, I also reflected on my own long and ignorable adult musical career.

Because of a small windfall of money from a cracked tooth from a store-bought fruitcake, I was able to surprise my husband with a second-hand baby grand piano. He had always told me of his desire to take lessons and play, and I naively believed him. I decided to join him and we took turns watching the baby and scooting off down the road to take lessons with a neighbor who taught piano.

Four months later, after participating as the only adults in a children's Christmas recital, my husband dropped out, but I stuck around for another six years. I tediously practiced my beginner's music of ''Rheba the Amoeba,'' ''The Chipmunks' Jamboree'' and ''Gertrude the Grasshopper'' so I could one day in my romantic fantasies play Chopin, Brahms and Beethoven at the drop of a hat. I did eventually graduate to shopping-mall music, but I never -yes, never - in six years progressed to a piece that required an assistant to turn a page or to a piece that had opus written in front of it. Oh, how I longed to play anything that had opus in the title.

When I occasionally found an opportunity to practice at the school where I teach, students whose futures I worried about because of their serious academic deficiencies would stare aghast at my sheet music when they found out I was in my sixth year of lessons. They casually and happily informed me that they had been playing my piece from memory when they were in the fourth grade. I never did learn one piece from memory and had to be the only advanced student at these recitals who brought the sheet music to the piano.

Now these twice yearly recitals at my teacher's home were another story. I, who would practically perform voodoo before taking a pill or medicine, was buying over-the-counter tranquilizers and taking a glass of wine, again extremely unusual for me, before I ventured out to these Carnegie Hall stress tests.

I used to dread for weeks these recitals, but I didn't have the heart to ask to be excused since my teacher,who had now become a friend, took a great deal of pride in her recitals. What always amazed me was the parent who confided to me over cookies and punch that her daughter had completely forgotten about the recital and had to be reminded to come. My sweaty palms, visibly shaking knees at the keyboard and finger-in-the-socket look advertised blatantly that I hadn't forgotten about the recital.

When parents would ask my husband whose father he was, he would point to me and say, ''The tall 36-year-old, scared-stiff blonde.''

As the years progressed, I became childishly envious of the two little girls who started the same year as I and who quickly advanced to sophisticated classical music.

If it were possible to stick out my tongue at them and make a face while they were playing, I probably would have, but I simply passed the blame to my parents for listening to me when I adamantly disdained piano lessons in my youth. If I hadn't been so stubborn, I could be playing ''Moonlight Sonata'' for our dinner guests instead of suffering their middle-brow onslaughts concerning the now-notorious ''Rheba the Amoeba.'' Over dinner, my friends wanted to know if there was an advanced version of Rheba called ''Son of Rheba the Amoeba'' or had Van Cliburn recorded ''Rheba'' yet.

The only people who took my arduous piano career very seriously were my mother and father. The minute they stepped into my house on their visits and kissed their grandson, they asked me to play. They even requested encores of my musical pap. I used to revert into a childlike state and grinned at their praise and parental approval. For a brief moment in our adult lives, I was their little girl again and they were my doting parents.

In the middle of these six years, I also took violin lessons during one summer at the school where I teach. If I ever thought it was the piano's fault and not mine, the violin reassured the musical world of the survival of the fittest among its ranks. My husband and friends told me years later that they actually had to hold in smirking laughter when my violin screeched away ''Mary Had a Little Lamb'' or ''Row, Row, Row Your Boat'' after one month of lessons with fourth graders. Again, Mom and Dad glowed with pride and I quietly returned in the fall to the piano even more musically humble than before. I consoled myself with the fact that I was returning to piano lessons and not triangle lessons.

My musical perseverance may have been some lesson in life, but I know the lesson wasn't ''practice makes perfect.'' Through my two musically gifted children - I'm their mother, would I lie to you - I have been vindicated and am able to give Mother Nature the royal raspberry for her cruel trick.