© 2025 Robert Sickles
From the earliest age, I can remember visiting my Grandma Sickles and being allowed to sit at her piano and tinker with music. But after a short time, Grandma would usually say, “OK, that’s enough noise, Bobby. If you want to play the piano properly, you must have lessons.” She would ask Aunt Helen to play for us, to show little Bobby how it’s done right. I didn’t know what having lessons actually entailed, and the stern way she cut me off in the middle of my “musical masterpiece” made me doubt that she knew what she was talking about. Lessons? What’s that mean? Aren’t I already playing the piano?
Now, I didn’t really think I was a prodigy or anything, all I wanted was to feel the keys and the enjoy her mellow old piano. Such a marvelous combination of challenges: controlling ten fingers to make the piano sound, understanding how all that complicated hardware worked, being able to put it all together to make music. Grandma’s sure played well compared to every piano I’ve touched since. Unlike a lot of little kids, I didn’t pound the keyboard with my fists to make awful noises. I tried to copy my Aunt Helen. She was a very good player, and I saw and heard what came from her nimble fingers. And I looked at the mysterious sheet music and tried to figure out what all the lines, squiggles, and dots were for.
A while later, I watched a famous pianist perform on TV, then give an interview where he said that the best thing that even happened to him was when his grandmother started teaching him to play the piano. Hmm. Maybe my grandma wasn’t completely wrong. It took me a little longer than it should have, but by the ripe old age of 12, I wanted piano lessons. Mom and Dad were both musical in some way, and pretty much leapt to it and bought a modest spinet piano. When they got me signed up for lessons at the local music shop, that’s when I became a student of one Gerald Chernofsky.
I’m sure that some of my readers, old friends from Denville, knew Mr. C. He was endowed with a very big personality, fascinating and intense, so different from my moderate-mannered family. With the old-world style of great music teachers, he was loud and emphatically joyous when I got it right, and loud and furiously emphatic when I didn’t. Such a range of expressiveness, all of it in high decibel! He used the “John Thompson” beginner series, but he also offered a lot of instruction on posture, attack, emotion, physical and mental preparation. At the time, I didn’t know what that was all for, but I tried my best. He worked with kids a lot, of course. So, in lulls between his emphatics, there were occasions when he felt that listening and advice were called for. He'd always ask about friends, school, and home. He was a mentor, even a life coach, as though every minute he spent with me mattered deeply. A very sweet guy!
Mr. C was a very talented musician and about as inspiring a teacher as I could have found. He was willing and capable to guide me wherever I wanted to go in music. So, you might ask, why did I quit lessons with him after only 3½ years?
Short answer: I thought I had learned all I needed. Formal lessons weren’t for me; I hated drills and boring exercises. I just wanted to make music. Mr. C wouldn’t let me skip ahead like I was prone to do. I, I, I… yeah, you get the picture. I was a 15-year-old dumbshit, sometimes lazy, always headstrong.
Fact is though, from that point on, I was happily self-taught at piano and other instruments. I had no idea of becoming a “musician” in life. My performance anxiety ruled that out. I just wanted to figure out music for the mental challenge and play for pleasure. At the risk of sounding as though I’m giving an award-acceptance speech, I do thank all those who got me started: Grandma, Aunt Helen, my parents and Mr. C. Their modeling and instruction gave me a lifelong love of music. There have always been pieces I can play passably, many I tackled with vain hope of understanding fully, and vast amounts of music that is far beyond any ability I could ever possess. For me, it’s good enough the way it is, but like almost everyone else who ever took piano lessons, I wonder what would have come of it if I had continued.
When I write about a place or person in my past, I like to do an online search, just to verify and refresh some of my memories. Curiously, I can find no mention of the music store on Broadway in Denville. But Gerald “Gerry” Chernofsky made a mark on the world, as a family man, as Mr. C the music teacher, and as Gerry, the accomplished jazz and pop musician. A life well-played. I found one video of him playing piano for family and friends at age 90, and a modest obituary from the Tennessean newspaper. Headline: “GERALD CHERNOFSKY, Age 92, musician and music teacher, January 27, 2009.”
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You wrote a wonderful addition to Mr. C's obituary to honor a life well lived. I'm sure any of his students and those he entertained as Jerry the Jazz musician are applauding your blog.