All posts for my Music category

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.

Last month, I joined a songwriters’ circle, for the first time in several years. I was part of a really fun one back then, but the person who hosted it moved, and no one else was interested in having a bunch of songwriters invade their home every month. This new one meets in the law offices of one of the members, so it’s probably going to be there for awhile.

For the uninitiated, here’s what happens at a songwriters’ circle. Each writer voluntarily performs some new effort, and subjects it to the opinions of all the other writers present. We even print out lyrics so that everyone else can write comments and suggestions on their very own copy of the song. They also, the brave ones anyway, speak their opinions aloud for the ears of all present. All of this requires a certain amount of trust, and although many of these people are new to me, I know most of them are veterans so I know they’ll be gentle but honest.

The circle consists of Joe Strouse –who invited me, Polk Shelton — whose offices these are, Sue Young – an old friend, and several others whose names I haven’t committed to memory yet. One of the members played a song that I gathered he’d tried out here before. It’s about someone who is in love with the female symbol on the ladies room door. I’m not certain what to make of this, but decide to approach it matter-of-factly, and pretty much ignore such minor matters as the fact that this is kind of an unusual subject. Someone else plays a lovely song about hiking on a mountain as a metaphor for life, and we all have our say about the rhyme scheme, but this is a subject that I’m used to hearing in a song. Much easier than symbols on bathroom doors. Then there is a song about Black-eyed Susans (the wildflower), which is a nice song, but then it turns out that the flower in question is really a Maximillian Sunflower. (I know this because I used to lead a Girl Scout Troop, and I made them learn all the Texas wildflowers – “because I said so”) Totally threw his rhyme scheme off, so I imagine we’ll hear a re-written version of that next time.

I played a song for them that only a few people have heard at this point, called “Rachel’s Sister”. It was very well received, and one person suggested replacing a word so that it was a perfect rhyme. I’m not into perfect rhymes, if a near-rhyme will get the point across better, so I’m probably not going to change the word, but I like that he thought of it and was willing to say so. That’s the neat thing about song circles. People can feel free to make suggestions, and you can feel free to take them or not, and every once in awhile, someone says something brilliant that you can use.

Nice, huh.

Although everyone I know, including the man who claims to love and understand me the most, thinks I’ve lost my mind, I’ve bought a flute and am learning to play it.  Now, mind you, I have a lot of instruments already, and except for two of them, I can pull a tune out of them if I want to, but I have a deep-seated psychological reason for wanting to play my flute.

A long time ago (in a galaxy far, far away. No. Different story…) someone I knew sold me their flute for a ridiculously low price. Even so, being a poor student, I made arrangements with him to pay it off in installments. I was so excited. I’ve always loved the sound of a flute, and I had James Galway, Jeremy Steig and Ian Anderson as evidence that it could be a very soul-satisfying endeavor.  Jeremy lived downstairs from me in New York City at one point, and I used to lie in bed early in the morning and listen to him practice. Ahhhhh!

I began to practice my brand-new used flute, and discovered that it was a lot more challenging than I was expected. It wasn’t just a case of knowing where the notes were. That was the easy part!  I had already played recorder, which is a fipple flute, so I knew sometimes the notes are not where it seems like they should be. But, like I said, that was the easy part. It took me two full weeks to be able to get anything you could seriously call a note out of just the mouthpiece.  The embouchure (Definition:   a.  The mouthpiece of a wind instrument – and – b. The adjustment of the player’s mouth to such a mouthpiece) was much more complex than fitting your lips around a fipple.  Flutes have a carefully designed little hole to blow through, and a “sweet spot” which it took me forever to find.

An odd thing happened while I was looking for it, however.  I’d never been able to whistle in my whole life to that point — a major failing, I always thought, and not for lack of trying.  While I was trying to get a note out of the flute, I suddenly was able to get a note out of my own lips, causing me immense satisfaction, and dooming all my friends to impromptu demonstrations whenever I could fit it into the conversation.

Eventually, I did learn to produce a note from the flute, and I went on to try to play a few little tunes, immediately stumbling on yet another obstacle. I could get about a third of the way, even through nursery rhymes, and then I would start to get dizzy from hyperventilation. No stand up playing for this girl. I had to sit to ensure that I didn’t fall too far to the ground.

At last, Eureka!, I could get through a whole tune before I was too dizzy to play.

My house, as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, had 5 bedrooms and I shared it with four other people, two men and two women, all in the Fine Arts Department at University of Texas, and mostly other musicians. One of my roommates had a friend who was not in school, but was a guitar player and singer. Not that we didn’t all do it, but Danny loved to hang out in the local watering holes (preferably those with music and pool tables) and pick up strangers. One morning he brought over two “ladies” he’d spent the night with, and when they left, one of them had my flute. I kept staring at the place where it was supposed to be when I went to practice after they were gone, but there was an empty space, and it never changed into my flute. I was heartbroken, and mad, none of which brought my flute back.

So now it’s years later, and an old friend of mine suddenly offers me her flute, which I didn’t even know she had, for practically nothing! It’s exactly the same brand, also silver plated and even costs the same amount as the one I lost so long ago.  A sign from heaven if ever I saw one.  So I wrote the check and now I’ve had one lesson, bought a book, and have been putting in my 15 minutes per day (pretty much all the time I have for it).  I’ve encountered all the same obstacles, but this time I have a bit more faith. And no one I know picks up women in bars anymore, thank goodness. So I think it’s safe for me to have it this time.  As soon as I have some small expertise, I’ll treat you all to a video.

10. Because there’s nothing on TV (So what else is new?)

9.   Because it beats doing bookkeeping.

8.   Because it puts off guilt for yet another day.  (My mother did a really good job on me!)

7.   So that when I tell my students that “I feel their pain”, I won’t be lying to them. (Actually, I would be, because I love practicing.)

6.   So that one day, I might be as good at this as I think I should be.

5.   Because David Letterman may call me one day, and I want to be ready.

4.   Because while I am practicing, no one asks me to do anything else, including housework.

3.   Because if I’m practicing, I have an excuse for not answering the phone.

2.   So that I don’t make a fool of myself onstage.

1.   Because it’s fun, and I like it even better than chocolate.

This morning, one of my daughters called up excitedly to tell me “You have to listen to this song. She reminds me so much of you!” and I had to think about how many times I’ve heard this, and it’s direct opposite, “You remind me so much of…..(fill in here)”

So I decided to make a list of all of these singer/songwriters from the first category and some place where you could listen to their music. Between us, maybe we can come up with a common thread.

Suzanne Vega – Marlena on the Wall – I think that was because she was the first to get a contemporary folk hit on the radio in that decade. Or maybe because she too had red hair. This was the first time anything like this was said to me, and I was enormously honored.

Tori Amos – Winter - I was compared to her in a review. Here’s my opinion: I love Tori Amos, and have great respect for most of her music. I don’t sound at all like her. I don’t look at all like her either, except for the fact that we both have long red hair. And we’re both female.

Judi Collins – Colorado – I’ll definitely take this one! It was Judi Collins who inspired me to perform in the first place. And I adore this song.

Amy Rigby – Keep it to Yourself - A family member sent  me her song “Cynically Yours” and said “I don’t know what you’ll think of this song, but it sounds to me almost like someone is copying you”. I can’t find video of it, but here’s an mp.3 Cynically Yours

Lily Allen – F**k You (original version) – or for the more sensitive (clean version) - This is the one my daughter called me about. Since I play for families and old ladies, I probably wouldn’t have recorded this, but I do recognize the attitude.

Which may be the common thread…..