All posts for my Music category

I really love the music that goes with this time of year.

Every year I have a little party for all my students sometime in December. Their parents bring goodies, I make Music Teacher Punch (ginger ale and sherbet) and my students are responsible for the music. Before the party, my goal is to teach them MY favorite Christmas carols, MY favorite Chanukah songs, and, if I had any students who celebrated Kwanzaa, I would have them learn MY favorite Kwanzaa songs too (Is there any such thing as a Kwanzaa song?)

There is a plethora of Christmas songs to choose from: Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming, O Come Emmanuel, Oh Holy Night, Gaudete (which I discovered last year after PBS aired a concert by Anuna, a new song called Little Colored Lights, from That Time of the Year, a production of which I was briefly involved in……so many that a list would be endless, not to say unnecessary.

Of Chanukah songs, there are fewer and I’m always on the lookout for new ones. This year, there was a windfall. A song called “Mama’s Latkes” from That Time of the Year, Hannukah in Santa Monica by Tom Lehrer (with whom I am secretly in love), and a big surprise: A Chanukah song written by Orrin Hatch, Senator from Utah. I already knew that Senator Hatch was a decent jazz keyboardist. But I also knew he is a Mormon, so the idea of him writing a Chanukah song came completely out of left field for me. I heard about it one afternoon listening to All Things Considered on NPR. Here it is, for your enjoyment.

I used to wonder, even as I was writing one, what possible good it could do to write and sing a song about political or social problems. I used to think that if I really wanted to do something to improve the world, I should get out and….I don’t know….demonstrate in the streets….work against the established authority….whatever. Change the collective mind.

In fact, one day when I was in my twenties, I really did entertain for awhile the notion of joining the underground and working outside the system. I considered whether or not I could actually do any good that way, or just get into trouble. The very next afternoon, some of the aforesaid underground blew up a house in East 11th Street in New York City killing about 5 people as I recall, and I decided I would take the more usual and less deadly route of marching and carrying signs.

And writing songs.

But still….

Today I finished (as much as they ever are) a song called “Behind Closed Doors”, and as I practiced it, I wondered about the effectiveness of a song about a problem. Does it change anyone’s mind? More to the point, does it change anyone’s actions? And here’s my postulation: If one person hears this song, and as a result starts talking…decides to come out in the open….seeks help, then the song has done something important. Maybe not all it could do. Maybe not all I could do. But something.

It remains to be seen whether that’s true. I may never know.

One of my little girl students asked me this week, “Can you tell what scale I’m playing without looking?”

“Yes”, I said, somewhat hesitantly. I’m never sure I should tell a student that, since I can’t teach them to do it.

“That’s weird”, she opined. “But kinda cool.”

In fact, that was the reason I got piano lessons when I was four. The most immediate use of the new  piano that arrived at our house was intended to be lessons for my older sister, and I was supposed to wait and grow interested (read: jealous) as I was presumed to be too young.  Well, the interest and the jealousy occurred in the first five minutes of her first lesson. Of course, all the adults ignored my desires, because that’s what adults did then, and I was summarily dismissed.

I’m not really sure why that happened, as at least a year before that, I’d memorized a song from the radio, and sang it for my mother. I know she knew I had the interest already, because she got very excited and had me demonstrate it for relatives and a couple of neighbors. Perhaps they just assumed I wouldn’t have the proper motor skills for the piano.

Then, one afternoon I was upstairs in my bedroom, probably cleaning it up – that seemed to be an ongoing activity in my childhood – and my mother was downstairs vacuuming.

“Hey, mother!”, I called from upstairs. “I know what note the vacuum cleaner is humming. It’s humming Middle C.”

Sure enough, she checked and that was the correct note. (Would I lie?)

Given that, and the fact that, on a different afternoon shortly after the vacuum cleaner event, I sat at the piano with my sister’s music book open in front of me, and picked out the (very simple, one-note-at-a-time) tune I had just heard her play. It suddenly dawned on me that each of those black dots on the page was one of the notes of the tune. I verified that with my mother, and taught myself to read music — or at least as many notes of it as were in that song and the ones that followed it.

We convinced her teacher to take me on too, and the rest, as they say…..

I point out to my students all the time how few of their classmates are getting private lessons on any instrument, and how fortunate they are to have parents that are willing to provide them. (Thus, they should practice more.) My father was very hard-working, and my mother had a chronic illness that resulted in some serious medical bills. And yet, part of the money was spent on music lessons for myself and my sisters. There are scenarios I can think of where I never would have been exposed to making music, and I probably would have become something else. Possibly a very unhappy something-else.

Needless to say, I feel very blessed and grateful.

Thanks to my friend, Deb Barr, who was in a band with my husband when they were in high school, I have a gig here at Sunrise Creek Residence. It’s extra money, and in a very pleasant setting, so I’m delighted to do it. I’ve brought my book of Broadway tunes, and they have piano. Perfect combination!

Except that they’ve set up the audience in a room other than the one where the piano is….

So I happily do my originals instead, and everyone is either quiet and attentive, or laughs in the right places, and they all seem to enjoy the songs. Indeed, several of the residents tell me so after the show. Very sweet people, all with stories of their own to tell. All in view of snow-topped mountains. I love my work.

WIMPs is a group started by Nancy Coplin and Rose Reyes. The acronym stands for Women In Music Professional Society and can be found at http://www.myspace.com/wimpsaustin.

Nancy books live music for the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. This is a big deal – not even Nashville does this, and they like to think of themselves as Music City. Austin calls itself the Live Music Capital of the World, and as near as I can tell, that is an accurate assessment. (I may be biased.) Nancy books a main stage and one of the small eateries at the airport to entertain people waiting for planes or between flights. Both stages are behind security, and you only have the audience’s attention until their flight is boarding, but you have their complete attention until that moment. Nancy has been doing this for about 10 years, and she knows most of the local musicians, no small feat.

Rose books the music at the Austin Convention Center, pretty much for the same reason. She and her assistant, Amanda Garcia show off Austin talent to visitors, corporate shows and conferences booked there.

I’ve played at the airport several times as a solo act, but the convention center usually books bands.

The group meets once a month, over lunch, and everyone stands and introduces themselves. They tell their latest story (briefly….if not, Nancy shakes her tambourine to let them know their time”s up) There were some notables present: Marcia Ball – internationally-known blues artist, Lee Duffy – current president of the Austin Songwriters Group, Cash Edwards – booking and management since the Creation. Lots of artists were present, some house-concert presenters and other venue owners, web designers, graphic artists, and a radio station owner.

After the introductions, we were supposed to eat lunch and network, but since we were at Threadgill’s (a fine restaurant, but not really geared to vegetarians like myself) I just went ahead and talked with everyone I could catch up with that said anything interesting during the intros. Lots of positive connections ensued, and I’m now in the process of following up with the people I talked to.

It was a great deal of fun and very illuminating as far as meeting new people and hearing about new endeavors in Austin that I might otherwise never have known about. You can bet I will be there next month.