"Do ray mee fa sol la tee tee"

"'If you start with A and go on up to G, there is a curious thing that seems to make the difference between G and A all the difference in the world. Twice as much difference as between any other two notes in the scale. Yet they are side by side there on the piano just as close together as the other notes'" (109).

This passage is found when Frankie, John Henry, and Berenice hear a piano being tuned while they are sitting in the kitchen talking about love. Mr. Schwarzenbaum, the piano tuner, starts and stops several times, never seeming to get the note he desires. He keeps getting stuck on the last note of the scale, G.

The repetitive sounds of the piano are more than mere background music to the story. The piano notes seem to parallel the disparity in Frankie's own life. Though she is kin to John Henry and around the same age as the other children in the neighborhood she sees herself as being so different than they are. Frankie's relationship with other children is like the relationship between G and A. Despite their proximity to each other, they are not harmonious.

In this passage, Frankie recognizes that there is such a small space dividing her from having unity with others. But, at the same time, judging from her remark about it being such a "curious thing" it seems that she does not know exactly why there is this dissonance or how it can be turned into consonance. It also shows that perhaps Frankie does not understand why there are some notes that can sound beautiful next to each other and others that do not. In Frankie's case, there are some girls who can get along and be members of a group together and then there is her, who never seems to sound in accord with anyone else in her town.

Q: Does being a member of something make you any more like the people who are in your group or do you have to be like the other members from the beginning in order to feel the unity Frankie desires?

-Amber