By Janet Stoica
Contributing Writer
HUDSON – Richard Hughes remembers having great fun playing on the jungle gym and thoroughly enjoying himself when he was about seven years old. His mom interrupted his monkey-bar time and let him know that they were going to visit a nice lady who was to provide them with piano lessons.
Off they went to Newtonville, a neighborhood of Newton. It was here in the music room of a Scottish lady named Alice that Hughes, a Hudson resident, acquired his love of music and passion for playing the piano. “It was only $3 a lesson back then,” recalled Hughes. My instructor was so kind and caring. She really enjoyed teaching piano. I took to it right away,” he noted. “Practicing my piano became a very typical and regular part of my day like going to school, playing with my friends outdoors, and doing homework afterwards. It was my habit, my routine, and I loved it.”
Musical curiosity
He said he was always curious about melodies and chord structure and now here he was greatly enjoying his new routine. “I also played drums,” said Richard, “then, in high school when our band teacher needed someone to play tuba, there I was.” That big brass tuba wasn’t for him though. “Using the mouthpiece was always a challenge,” he said, so he went back to the piano.
He tried the xylophone, which consists of wooden bars struck by mallets. “The xylophone has the same arrangement of five black notes in a scale similar to a piano and has balance,” he explained “It’s a wooden instrument that is very staccato. The piano is softer. I even tried the violin but the piano with all its keys being right there with such an infinite number of combinations really intrigued me.”
Hughes noted that the piano was invented after the harpsichord and clavichord and that we have Johann Sebastian Bach to thank for the well-tempered tuning of today’s music of playing in all keys. “Playing an instrument is a very personal thing,” said Hughes. “You’re using your body to express the sound and you work on making that sound come out well. It makes for good life lessons of being in a routine and continuing on with a project while planning and having good time management.”
Career change
At the age of 52, Hughes was laid off from his position in manufacturing. He said it was a watershed moment for him. He decided to do what he had always wanted to do and that was to make a living playing piano. His new job became an intense amount of time researching in the Worcester library. He borrowed books about positive thinking and positive experiences about embarking on his own.
His persistence, research, and spirit paid off. He had always enjoyed the ragtime and jazz music genres and found himself drawn to the type of music played during the age of silent movies when local pianists would play appropriate music to match the films showing at the movie houses. Since 2003, he has made his encore career presenting programs as a silent film pianist statewide at community events, schools, historical societies, senior centers and retirement communities.
Recently, Webster’s Samuel Slater Experience (museum) hosted Mr. Hughes as he presented his historical perspective of silent movies with live piano accompaniment. His presentation was funded by the Webster Cultural Council, and had over 60 visitors in attendance. Hughes has refined his presentation to show clips of the silent movies, brings his own screen, portable keyboard, laptop, and projector. He also educates his audience on the subtleties of the 1920s era while providing an historical perspective. He hopes audiences leave his presentation with a great appreciation for the pianists who accompanied those silent films and the actors who became the stars of the era like Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton, and Douglas Fairbanks.
Richard Hughes found his musical niche all those years ago and continues to entertain and inform with his multi-faceted and energetic presentation.
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