Amends

I think I know why I took up guitar at age fifty. I remember Mrs. Smith (violin), Mrs. Pullano (voice) and Mrs. Rotunda (voice) from grade school and middle school. I remember Mrs. Hoffman (piano) from private lessons, then Mrs. K who my mother fired for cutting my and my little sister’s nails well below the quick because she thought she heard a click on the keys. I was twelve. I was eleven when I rebelled and told my father, a violinist, I no longer wanted to play violin.

Giving up piano and ballet were easier. We moved from a small village to the big city and there was a mall nearby that my girlfriends frequented. It was more fun to wear nail polish and hang out at the mall than no polish and no nails and practice.

Today, I hear no recriminations about practice except in my own head. No-one says “I’m paying good money for these lessons,” though my loving husband could do so. It was April 15, I’d filed our taxes and went out and bought a guitar, the wrong guitar for me because it was too big.

Dueling Guitars

Today, I have a new Seagull acoustic guitar made of Canadian hardwoods from my Mom’s province and it’s decidedly folk and I’m a beginner. My new teacher had me play Eleanor Rigby today, a song I learned in the fourth grade in poetry. I love this song. He taught me a bit about vocalization and asked if I could read music and tell him of the note that started the song. I told him and sang it. He then said he’d play and wanted me to sing the first verse. We stopped for a moment and he told me I have perfect pitch. I said, “I know.”

This makes it sad that my faux hippie girlfriends were more interesting to me than learning music. My life would have been quite different had I mastered an instrument at an early age, but I may never have met my soul mate. So, as of today, my mother’s heritage is being honored through the guitar, plus my father and grandfather for instilling a love of music in me that has been unrequited for some time. I may be doing penance for my ‘tween years but it’s fruitful and I know my husband loves to hear me progress in my studies. That, and my willingness to learn, may make me good enough to play for family and friends. Cheers, Dee