Not like Billy Joel but I could tinkle a bit.
I started at an early age with the legend in our small North Dakota town, Sybil McDonald.
I believe she was born in Scotland but I can't be sure.
Nor do I recall how she wound up in Stanley, North Dakota.
But she was, if not the only, the most in demand piano teacher in town.
And I spent six or seven years taking lessons from her.
As well as reprimands.
See her teaching involved, first, scales to limber up your fingers.
And then classical music from sheet music or books with the notes on the pages.
You learned what those strange spots meant and how to play them.
There's a mnemonic to remember your E-G-B-D-F notes in a scale: Every Good Boy Does Fine!
So we studied and played, some of us better than others, for years.
I, on the other hand, learned how to make notes "blue" and the songs, well, "jazzier".
When I did it during a lesson it infuriated my teacher.
After I got out from under her, a bit later in life, I learned some simple boogie-woogie songs and one cold winter night in another town in North Dakota I played in a couple of bars and got drinks bought for me and a couple of girl friends.
Not girlfriends, mind you, but girl friends.
I've lost it all now.
A couple of years ago I looked at a piece of sheet music and realized that I had lost all of my knowledge about it and didn't have the faintest idea what those splotches on the page meant.
I could have not played anything from them if my life had depended on it.
I found I could still pick out a tune or two with one finger on a keyboard but all of my training and my "bar talent" had gone down a rathole.
So just to prove that my tale is true, here's a photo of me at the piano, playing from the notes, sometime probably back in the mid 1950's.
You can probably judge the era by my haircut and that antiquated television set next to me.
Ah, memories.
tc/Light/Breezes Great story my friend. You had not lost your piano memory in the late 60's and early 70's. I remember you jamming out some boogie woogie at a bar or party and especially one evening in Kansas City at the famed Muehelbach Hotel. We were in a partitioned and closed area of the old beast that was awaiting the renovation that happened elsewhere on the floor. You were banging out a boogie beat on an old upright, Tim was beating the bottom of an old chair, bongo drum style and I was trying to add to the mix by clamping out air blasts from an expired old fire extinguisher. We'd had a few nips previously which is how and why the Secret Service was able to sneak up on us. They asked "What are you doing?" I think you looked up from old ivory and said, "Can't you tell?"
ReplyDeleteWhat a great story!
DeleteAh, I always thought I'd like to play piano. I played clairnet and had hopes of being in a professional orchestra. I still know all the notes and even when I hear it being played know the fingerings. I passed my instrumennt on to my son and then from him on to a niece. I think of getting one again from time to time.
ReplyDeleteI admire your success at the piano, even if it has waned with time. I took lessons for years and finally had to admit that all the musical gifts my father had were passed only to my brother. I envy your bar gigs, even if they are past, they are still yours.
ReplyDeleteWhen I retired, I was planning to take piano lessons but never did. I also took 7 years of lessons when I was younger, including recitals and adjudications. (didn't enjoy the latter at all) I can still play but woe to anyone listening if there is more than one sharp or flat. And I've lost the way upper and lower register.
ReplyDeleteI was going to say nice haircut and glasses. It's sad that you and thousands of other kids got to play and then lost it all.
ReplyDeleteAs a child I used to wish our house had a piano, like those of several classmates. My dad was musical and played piano accordion and harmonica, but the genes did not carry down to me, so it's just as well we didn't have a piano.
ReplyDeleteMy dad played the piano for years.
ReplyDeleteTis better to have played and forgotten than to never have played at all.
ReplyDelete-Mary
I always hated musical manuscripts and the notion that you could only make proper music if you were able to read it from paper. Many of the best were never able to read music. They played by ear and from memory. I am glad you played some of your own boogie woogie for Sybil McDonald.
ReplyDeleteE.G.B.D.F. was one of my favorite albums from the Moody Blues. Their Every Good Boy Deserves Favor was released in 1971 and was # 1 in Britain and reached #2 in the US
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81Kl9quwCGQ
I never did learn to read music, to many visual spacial challenges in my brain. My grandmother remembered how play, late into her dementia when she no longer remembered family, playing from the heart music she learned as a child.
ReplyDeleteI like Mary's comment above! I agree with her -- at least you learned it at some point in your life. I took piano as a kid but I couldn't read music now either. I think FACE was another mnemonic device for remembering notes, but I can't remember what it applied to.
ReplyDeleteFACE was the spaces between the lines. I don't know why I know that since I never learned to play any instrument.
ReplyDeleteLinda Sand
I agree with Mary too. 👍😊
ReplyDelete—-Cheerful Monk
ReplyDeleteI took piano from nuns. Sister Waldamera was stricker and might slap your fingers if you weren't playing the song correctly. Sister Maria Reina was much sweeter but I only took lessons until 8th grade I hated recitals and playing for others. I can still play (not too well) but only have about 5 songs that I can do with the sheet music. My younger sister is the musician and plays for her church.
ReplyDeleteI could never play anything. We were too poor when I was young, although Mom did take piano lessons occasionally. But no band, no lessons, no instruments for us kids. I have always regretted not learning to play something! I have a dulcimer and can pluck out a few tunes, but that's it. I am, however, a great audience, and love to hear my friends play. At least I can sing...but not with an instrument. I can only sing a capella, old murder ballads and such.
ReplyDelete