My piano lessons began 50 years ago, in September 1951. My teacher was an Austrian martinet -- Isadore Buchalter. He told my family that he had hopes for me, that I was somewhat musical, but that I couldn't learn to read.

I realized, 40-plus years later, that I wasn't cursed with indolence, but that I couldn't see the notes. I was hopelessly myopic. I got my first eyeglasses when I was 8, but by then I had quit the piano.

Around 1963 my lessons continued when I had the great fortune to meet Louise Gould. She sat me down and had me playing triads, and triads with the octave, both hands, up and down the keyboard. She used this simple exercise to show me the cycle of fifths, and its additions, subtraction, alterations, inversions, which are the foundations of music theory. I realized that my toddler piano lessons had taught me to play without reading, to fake it, to play by ear.

I played four hands one afternoon with Randy Newman. I apologized for rushing. I said I was such a musical doofus that I almost felt as if I had to ''count.'' He stopped and looked at me a bit in incomprehension and said, ''Everyone counts.'' He also taught me to hear the passing tone, to listen for it, as it was driving the music.