Music Lessons

While boxing up stuff to move (again) I came across several 3×5 cards upon which were lyrics to songs I learned to sing when I was twelve. Dad got me a cheap guitar for Christmas and taught me enough to be dangerous. Dangerous enough to perform with my tone deaf neighbor in front of the entire school. What was I thinking?

Dad’s lifelong instrument was the violin, and for several years he taught music in public schools then wherever he went he usually joined the local community orchestra. I started violin two years early in school, taught by a friend of his, a fellow violinist he knew from college. I enjoyed the training, not the practice of course, and was second chair for the entire time I was learning there, five years. I also tuned everyone’s violins and violi for them.

Piano was interesting for a few years. Mrs. H. was great and because we came together and lived together, we took separate lessons but my sister and I always had to play one duet at recitals. When we moved we got a horrific teacher, Mrs. K., a Greek lady who hated the sound of fingernails on the keys so if she heard even the hint of sound, she’d get out the nail clippers and cut below the quick. She drew blood once and Mom said enough is enough, you’ll never touch my children again!

In high school I quit all music except choir, which was OK. Dad was quite disappointed. At age fifty I bought an inexpensive guitar, having lost the first one to an ex-boyfriend. It was a dreadnaught, too big for me. I started private lessons and even enjoyed practice. My first teacher was encouraged by my progress and dedication. My second, less so, as he was a drummer and only cared about the beat. I’m more about learning the music and chords first, then polishing the work. I quit.

Enter Duolingo. Since a traumatic brain injury and then being home during COVID, I took up Italian and French on Duolingo. I’m still with it today, having added Latin. Their newest offering is piano so I decided to try it. It’s very strange, having a real keyboard in the other room, having to touch an iPad screen to play. Plus, the keys are short and fat and now that they’re introducing new notes, they move the keyboard up or down depending on the range of the piece, which is off-putting. There is no fingering and you’re scored on getting the notes and tempi correct.

Each set of lessons starts out slowly with a new note, then several notes together, then doing math with notes and rests. Then perhaps a portion of an easy song. Then the learner is “rewarded” with playing along to a piece of popular music I’ve never heard of. Interestingly as a kid all I wanted to do was play pop tunes and instead was rewarded by Dvorjak. Now, I’d give anything for a new Chopin étude! I’m less than thrilled about Duolingo’s foray into the musical realm, but it does come in handy to score points at the end of a week when I’m too busy to do much language study as I do most music lessons in under two minutes.

My favorite teacher? Dad. When I was twelve he taught me “cowboy chords” on my new guitar, C, D, G, A, D. With them I learned Teach Your Children, Day Is Done and Where Have All The Flowers Gone. Those were my recital pieces at the school assembly. I wrote out the lyrics with the chord above. For the latter, just the lyrics as I could hear the notes in my head and knew instantly what chord to play without prompting. Sorry, Dad, I never became the musician you wanted me to be.

Now I’ve a Seagull acoustic guitar, a nice instrument with a mellow sound that I keep hydrated and rarely play, but I may get around to it now that I’ve found my 3×5 cards with the lyrics! We listened primarily to classical music when I was growing up, with a smattering of big band and my favorite, Frank Sinatra. I enjoy music and believe it is essential to children as they grow up. It’s sad that the schools have lost music and art because they are foundations of well-rounded adults.

Next time you’ve a song running around in your head, try to remember the first time you heard it and what you were doing at the time. It’s like whenever I smell chocolate chip cookies it brings me back to baking every day after school when I was a freshman in high school. That and snickerdoodles. Yum. Cheers and enjoy a musical and cookie-filled day! Dee