Cello

[pegkerr]

On Saturday, Delia and I went to a music store to get her new cello that we will be renting so that she can start playing in the school orchestra.

We chose a 1/2 size instrument for her. I broke into a smile as she plucked a string and then tentatively drew the bow across. That sound brought back a thousand dear memories for me of my mother playing the cello. Mom started when she was ten years old, too, and she has been playing for over sixty-five years. She played in the Evanston (Illinois) symphony orchestra, going to rehearsals on Tuesday nights, and playing in several concerts each year. Attending those concerts was an important part of my own musical education. The sound of Mom's playing was a constant through my childhood. She sat in the living room by the piano, her eyes alight as she practiced, patiently going over runs again and again. To this day, I love the sound of the cello, so close to the nuances of the human voice, because it reminds me so of my mother, and all that her music brought to our lives.

I am thrilled that Delia has chosen to play the cello. If she sticks with it, I will certainly look forward to her playing duets with Fiona on violin. I expect Mom will give Delia a cello lesson when she is up visiting later this month.

Did your parent play an instrument? Did he or she teach you? Tell me how music has been a part of your family.

Comments

[liadan-m.livejournal.com]

My mother played the piano, and made sure those were my first true music lessons. I can still manage to play, though I have found the vocal arts to be more enjoyable. Sometimes, when we go to the small church where she grew up and the rest of my family still attends, we will do the piano and vocal duets for the offering. Her alto balences my soprano well.

The last post, continued

[markiv1111.livejournal.com]

My mother also could use her skill as a pianist to sit in front of the piano and play the "songbook piano" parts to all kinds of folk songs, almost invariably from *The Fireside Book of Folk Songs." The kids would stand around the piano and sing along. We also got very rudimentary piano lessons, and the three older children (again, with my brother not yet having been born) made rapid progress. I have a vague feeling that I was given more piano lessons, over a longer period, than either of my sisters, in spite of the fact that the two of them became far stronger classical pianists than I've ever been. Mom and I worked out a schedule where I'd be taking a formal lesson from her once a week, and I would practice and sometimes invent things of my own on the piano, making heavy use of the black keys.

My father had an office in a building right next door to another building where a mother and daughter guitar teacher team worked. At this time, we were living in Brazil; I had unaccountably had more difficulty learning Portuguese than most kids my age, and had few friends in my neighborhood. For my father to give me a series of lessons with the younger teacher, Janine Ramos, made sense, and a guitar and weekly lessons were my 8 year old birthday present. I made rapid progress.

To be continued. Nate B.

Music and the family

[markiv1111.livejournal.com]

Peg, you won't be that surprised that I came by my music via the family. When the Bucklins were doing a lot of cross-country traveling, before I was seven years old (as we moved to Brazil when I was age 6 years and 7 months), my parents would keep the kids entertained by singing harmonies in the front seat. (My mother is, and my father was, a far, far stronger singer than I am; in fact, I spent years quite perplexed that I didn't inherit their singing voices.) Sometimes they would sing "Ilkla Moor," whose chorus is contrapuntal, not harmonic. And when I was around 3 (with Alison being 5 and Kathleen 7, and my brother Jeremy not yet born) they started teaching us to sing rounds. I really, really had to concentrate to be able to stay on track even with "Row, Row, Row Your Boat," but managed to get it eventually. My mother's main interest is classical piano, and she does a house concert in the Seattle area once a year, though it wound up being three concerts last year as the number of interested listeners was far greater than the venue had room for.

Peg, I'm going to do this as a couple of different posts, as the last time I had this much to say commenting to somebody else, I found I couldn't post it. More in just a bit.

Nate B.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

My parents had abandoned their old band instruments long before my birth. Mom's parents didn't have the money for piano lessons when she wanted them, but when she was 15 and wanted guitar lessons instead, they finally had the money for piano lessons and determined that Mom would take piano lessons, come hell or high water. Her friends were actually playing the piano, and she was plunking through beginner exercises. It did not go well.

Mom decided she was never doing that to me. She made me beg for piano lessons for two years before she was sure that I really wanted them for myself and not to please her (and so that my hands would grow big enough). She said she would never remind me to practice, and she never did, but she never had to. For years I thought that she didn't want me to play the piano and only allowed it because I wanted it so much, but really she was delighted every time I sat myself down to play.

The less fraught way music was a part of our family life is that we always sang a lot together. Mom and I have very similar voices, so tight harmony is pretty easy for us -- we blend well. And Dad is a good singer regardless of who he's trying to harmonize with.

Momma and I have a history of reliably cracking each other up by breaking into silliness in unison, without discussion. Once we started singing "Rose, Rose" in Elmer Fudd voices together, with no provocation we or anyone else could see. We laughed until we cried. Everyone else present thought it was an old joke between us, but it was just that our brains were twisty in the same directions.

More on the family

[markiv1111.livejournal.com]

When I was eight years and five months old, it was decided that I would take my guitar to school and play. However, though I thought I'd been careful leaning my guitar up against the table, it fell and broke its neck. My father screamed, "You've broken your guitar!" and began hitting me with his cane. The cane was an inch thick and had a metal core. Dad continued to hit me as I screamed, finally breaking the core of his cane, and leaving me with a back, hind end and face that were nothing but scar tissue for at least six months and probably more like a year. I did not go to school that day, and mom did not take me to a doctor. The guitar got fixed, and I began practicing guitar with a monomania virtually unheard of in 8 year olds, thinking that perhaps if I were a perfect guitar player, Dad wouldn't hit me again.

In Rosario, Argentina, Dad's next foreign service post, he developed an interest in the local folk music. (Not tangos -- tangos are a commercial art form.) I shared this interest, and Dad's guitar teacher, Adolfo Alvarado (with an occasional assist from his brother, Eduardo Alvarado, who was more of a voice teacher) made a point of teaching me very specifically the formats for the zamba, the chacarera, the gato, chaya, cueca, and a few others. He didn't realize that he was teaching me how to *compose* dance songs in these genres. My father, at this point more of an ally, gave me some hints after I wrote a lame half-finished zamba called *Adios Formosa.* My second song, complete with Spanish lyrics, was completely right down the center of the bowling alley. (The song was called "Recuerdos de los Anges.") The Alvarado brothers were amazed, as this is not the kind of thing one would expect a 9 year old American kid to do. I wrote a number of other songs during this period (all zambas except for one chacarera) and eventually my father hooked me up with a local teenage folk group, El Conjunto Folklorico Infantil Albor Gaucho. I did not join Albor Gaucho, but went with them to a concert in Casilda, Santa Fe province, where I played two Spanish language originals, a guitar instrumental piece, and "La Colorada" (learned from local folk group Los Chalchaleros). After this start (which I owe completely to my father) my career as a more-or-less child progidy took on a life of its own, though I really only played variety shows, never more than four songs and usually only two. The fact that the folk "variety show" is a very, very standard form of entertainment in Rosario (and presumably elsewhere in Argentina) benefited me a great deal. After this, I had gotten the early start I wanted, and my parents' influence in my career was really no longer necessary.

Peg, this is probably more than you wanted to hear.
I'll quit now.

Nate B.

[airemay.livejournal.com]

I come from a very musical family. My mom plays piano. She composed songs in the 1980s. She recorded them (copyrighted them as well!), and I would listen to them when I fell asleep at night. She taught me to play piano in 3rd grade. She also played trumpet in school, the same instrument my brother played for a few years.

My dad plays trombone. He passed this on to me. I played his trombone for four years. Sadly, I returned it in far worse shape than it was given to me lol. It had a tendency to fall... My little sister plays flute. That was a surprise to me, as we are primarily a brass family.

[cmpriest.livejournal.com]

Mom played piano.
Dad plays any stringed instrument you hand him.

When I was little - way little - they started me on piano. They thought I was a prodigy; I've always had long fingers and could almost reach an octave at the age of six. But I never learned to read music, and it was my great mortal fear that one day they'd figure me out. I was a fraud! A phony! I watched my teacher's hands and copied what she did ... but I couldn't understand the musical notation to save my life. I gave up in frustration when I was about eight.

These days, I'm tone deaf and play nothing at all.
My 17 year old brother, however, plays piano well enough that at 14 he played in my sister's wedding - then last year, he played for mine. He also plays trumpet in the marching band.
Eh. Whatchagonna do?

[jenett]

What a lovely question! (I know you via Elise, btw.)

Neither of my parents played instruments much, but my mother grew up in a very musical family (my grandfather, her father, was a pretty serious vocalist, and used to sing Schubert Lieder for fun.)

They made music a pretty big priority for their kids - we had some kind of child-appropriate music lessons from early on, and then in 4th grade, were told we were going to learn piano, and another instrument. I started with flute, picked up bassoon in 9th grade, and harp in 12th, as well as singing.

I'm fondest of singing because it's both infinitely portable, and been very adaptable to various parts of my life. The other one I play even semi-regularly is harp (I have a 29 string harp: see icon - that's her, with photoediting. In RL, she's walnut wood colored, not blue.) I'd like to get back to piano again if I could get regular access to a functional instrument or decent synthesiser. It's on my some-day list.

My brother did various band instruments, but my sister was a very serious pianist. She got very into ragtime when I was small (she's 16 years older than I am) so I got used to going to sleep listening to her play it. To this day, it's an immensely relaxing and enjoyable bit of music.

[malinaldarose.livejournal.com]

My parents both played wind instruments when they were teenagers. My dad played the flute and my mom played a cornet that was handed down from my great grandfather.

Our school system doesn't start teaching instrumental lessons until the fifth grade, but when I got there, I inherited Dad's flute. Two years later, my brother started lessons on Pa's cornet.

We had both started piano lessons in third grade, thanks to my grandmother who not only bought us a piano, but paid for the lessons. Later, my sister also played piano and flute (briefly using Dad's flute, as well).

I was first chair in my high school band for a couple of years and I dearly wanted to pursue music in college, but it wasn't to be. Although my parents gave me the old piano for my birthday about six years ago, I hardly ever play -- my wrists bother me too much when I do. And I haven't played my flute in years, either; probably I'd scare the dogs to death if I did.

frequent lurker here

[galeotti.livejournal.com]

Nobody in my family has ever really been involved with music; I have two cousins that took piano for a few years, but it was something they abandoned once they reached high school. Nobody was ever involved with a band, a choir, an orchestra, or anything like that.

I'm the odd one out in my family. I started singing when I was 10 because in elementary school there was only band or choir, and my family couldn't afford to rent an instrument. So I chose the only alternative and fell in love with it. I began voice lessons at 15, and now at 18, I'm a music education major. When I grow older, get married, and have a family, I hope I can be that person for my children. The one that sings them to sleep every night, teaches them fun songs, plays the piano and leads carols at family gatherings on Christmas, and introduces them to music. I never had that person, and I so envied families that did.

[dreamcoat-mom.livejournal.com]

My parents both loved music. My mother, who is of Swedish heritage, played the accordian, while my dad was a fantastic percussionist. He and his sister had been a tap-dance duo in their childhood, and I discovered early on that everything in life contained rhythm. I was picking out tunes on my grandad's piano at the age of four, and at the age of six, I got my own and began lessons. My parents didn't have much money, but they borrowed heavily to buy that instrument and paid it off in time payments for the next decade. Later on, I picked up a guitar, and discovered the joy of mixing rhythm and tone - rhythm guitar is my instrument of choice to this day, and its lack of melody forced me to hone my singing skills. (http://dreamcoat-mom.livejournal.com/96240.html) (You might want to ff through the talking to get to the singing.) Music is such an intrinsic part of who I am now that I cannot imagine who I would be without it. It gave me my friends, a portion of my livelihood, a social scene I cherish, my wonderful husband, and a way to connect with my children. Fun post, Peg, thanks!

Nitpicking my own posts

[markiv1111.livejournal.com]

My nine-year-old prodigy song was *Recuerdos de los Andes,* not "anges." And you've got some wonderful people talking about their musical lives and musical families here. I'd like to meet all of them (all of you). Is there any way you can throw a music party and invite all of us? (Remembering, Peg, that you and I live only four blocks apart.)

Nate B.

[knitmeapony.livejournal.com]

My mother has an upright piano, one she bought as her first Big Furnature Purchase after Dad and she were married, years before I was born. It's still in tune, still in her house, and I can tell you about every bit of it from memory -- the base and the pedals, which are slightly newer because it survived a flood, and slightly different colors; the keys which have the names of them in pencil on the sides, because I thought that'd be the easy way for me to learn, when I was six; the top, which has a groove in it from the brass piano lamp which has sat on top of it for as long as the piano has existed. There's a chip in one of the side boards from where i hit it with a music stand when I was practicing piano. The fourth A flat-G sharp sticks if you try to play it too soft.

Mom took lessons when she was young, and never kept them up; when my sister and I started (me when I was six, her a year later when she was five) we used her books for a while. When we started being able to play decently, she started taking lessons as well, and finding practice time for all three of us was a crunch but we did it.

Those lessons turned Katie and I on to music. I played the flute, and loved it instantly; I've played six or seven kinds of flute now in concerts and such. My sister started in saxophone, but didn't love it. Moved on to viola and then oboe, and finally mallet percussion and she loves all of them. She and I both marched in bands; we also took singing lessons and we've been in church choirs. Katie's cantored at her local church and been on a CD they recorded for Christmas; I've been in musical theatre productions (local, but still great folks) in two states and England.

That piano started it all, and Katie and I are now in a race to see who gets a house first, a real home big enough to welcome it in. We both want our families to use that piano that's been in tune for over thirty years.

Mom doesn't really want to let it go, but she's promised she will. I suspect she'll get herself another one once it's passed on.

[jbru.livejournal.com]

No one in my family played an instrument. At an early age, however, I determined that I wanted to play French Horn. I don't remember what my motivation was now, but certainly the rich tones of the horn are appealing. How did I know what they were, though? I'd heard classical music and even attended a performance or three of the San Diego Symphony in elementary school.

Sometime about 4th or 5th grade I was given the opportunity to play trumpet. I think it was at least partially an economic choice, renting a trumpet being cheaper. I took lessons at school and attended other lessons outside of the regular school year.

In 7th grade, I moved to junior high and enrolled in band. There I was able to play the French horn. The school had two or three that could be used by students and taken home for practice. I remember lugging the French horn in its case for the six or eight blocks from school to home and back again. I learned quickly that one could stash books and even a lunch in the big bell of the horn making carrying it all at least a little easier.

I continued French horn in high school after we moved to Blackduck, MN in 1981 but grew disillusioned with the quality of instruction I could receive in a small, rural Minnesota school. So I stopped in my senior year and didn't pursue any music in college.

I'm returning to music now, however, and have embarked upon a 40-year plan to become an 80-year-old blues guitarist.

French Horn

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

You don't strike me as a French horn kind of guy.

B

[folk.livejournal.com]

Interestingly, musical ability and training seems to have skipped my parents' generation. My paternal grandfather was a campanologist and a wonderful bass, and my paternal grandmother a wonderful alto -- they both sang in a Cathedral choir when they lived in Birmingham. My dad never got into it, though.

My mum, when she was in her teens, played the piano accordion, but had to give it up because it was doing her back in. Half of that side of the family is literally tone deaf. (Family sing-songs are best avoided.)

And then I came along, and I seem to have hoovered up all the recessive talent gene. Ah, well.

[bekkio.livejournal.com]

My grandfather played organ and would always entertain my brother and I when we visited by playing a variety of show tunes with a snappy beat. My mother tolerated my short attention span with instruments as I switched from piano to clarinet to flute to viola to bass to viola to trombone and finally settling for keeps on viola. I've played since I was twelve, spending 3 years in college majoring in music until my daughter was born. I've played on and off since then, but my oldest daughter has settled on cello as well. She plays the full sized instrument my brother played when he was in school. Her music teacher at school plays in the orchestra I played in for a few years.

[castiron.livejournal.com]

Mom's an organist, so we got musical training from an early age. My dad tells me that when I was two and would hit the piano keys, Mom would take my hands and say, "No, you can't hit the piano. But you can play it." And she'd help me pick out little tunes.

I don't remember this at all. But I remember the day I discovered that if you start on a C and play the notes in order down the piano, you're playing "Joy to the World". And I measured how much I was growing by how much of the keyboard I could span; it was a big day when I could touch the lowest and highest keys at once.

(And since Mom was a church organist, the hidden price to my brother's getting an electric guitar was that he had to play "Silent Night" -- on acoustic -- at church every Christmas.)

[woodrunner.livejournal.com]

One side of the family is artistic, and the other, while also artistic, is more musical. My mother played the piano and taught both my older brother and myself on this ugly yellow wall-sized object with gleaming white teeth and the occassional piece of dirt between them. Once I figured out that there was nothing inside it that could eat me (though I did almost fall into it when I opened the top to inspect its innards), I hunkered down to play.

I wasn't bad. My brother was better. Being older, he played in competitions. I never reached the level where I could play in those groups, because I lost my hearing. My mom, determined to keep me playing, traded in the yellow beast for an organ so that I could feel the vibrations of the notes.

I played for years afterward. My brother made the switch from the piano to the organ rather painlessly and continued with competitions for some time. I don't play the piano or the organ anymore; I have forgotten how to read music.

My brother, nearing forty, has taken up the violin. His son and daughter are growing up musical.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_lindsay_/]

Unfortunately I'm the first to attempt to learn an instrument in my family (the guitar right now at age 22!) but I recently read "A Song to Sing, A Life to Live: Music as Spiritual Practice" by Emily Saliers (of the Indigo Girls) and her father, Don Saliers. I highly reccomend, for subject matter if not for consistently brilliant writing, it's a pretty quick read and I think you would find it interesting.

[chamisa.livejournal.com]

My mom plays classical piano (not for a living, just for occasional pleasure), and also (a little bit) the recorder.

Her parents bought her a piano when she was a child. My 9 years older brother grew up playing that piano too. And I grew up playing that 1930s era upright piano, which is now a bit long in the tooth and battered by time and mishaps, but it's still in good shape and now it's mine.

It lives in my kitchen, which seems an odd place for it but if you saw my kitchen it would make sense to you. In the piano bench is some of the sheet music she grew up taking piano lessons with (the markings her piano teacher made are on it) and also that *I* grew up with (my piano teacher's markings are also on it).

I had a piano teacher for many years growing up; Mom didn't really teach me but helped me every now and then when needed. I wish I'd tried harder and praticed more--my skills at the piano now are quite rusty.

Mom now has a new piano, and she usually plays it at Christmas--at least, that's when I notice her playing it--so I'd have to say that's my main music memory of her and the piano. She'll also break out the recorder and play along with me on the piano.

I also grew up playing the recorder and the flute, and was in band in jr. high and high school. I remember very clearly one amazing Christmas when there was a piccolo in my stocking (I'd wanted one SO badly!), and another when there was a recorder. My flute, piccolo and recorder now live on top of the piano.

As for other family members, my dad plays classical guitar and I have a lot of good memories of listening to him play it. I never learned the guitar, though.

My older brother grew up to become a highly respected piano tuner. Another older brother plays guitar and is learning to be a luthier. A younger brother is a really good musician (oboe) and composer. My husband plays the guitar.

[penmage.livejournal.com]

My entire family (me and five siblings) took Suzuki piano classes (a private lesson, a music theory class and a performance class) every Sunday for a lot of our lives. It ingraned in us a love of music, a hatred for practising, and a working knowledge of music theory.

Even after I quit because of time constraints, I still love music, and I've recently picked up the tin whistle. I've found that it's a lot easier for me to pick up the basics and get good because of my Suzuki piano training.

[kiwiria.livejournal.com]

I wasn't allowed to take piano lessons until I was 8'ish (grade 3 I think), because of some weird rule the music school had that until then you could only play the recorder. Don't ask me why. My dad played the piano and I was always fascinated by it, so he'd sit down to teach me the basics once a week, meaning that by the time I was allowed to take 'official' lessons, I was already able to read music and play simple tunes.

Music has always been a huge part of my family. We all play the piano; dad also plays guitar; Mum, Rebekka and Mixi also play the violin; Nina also plays drums; I also play the recorder and the flute. We'd occasionally have 'home services' if we couldn't go to church for some reason, and dad would accompany our singing on the guitar, or in the evenings he'd sit by the piano and play dance tunes while us four girls danced around him. When we got older it was usually I who'd sit down to play songs and one or more of my sisters would stand around me, singing, or Rebekka and I would play a duet on piano and flute.

I miss that... I hope my children will want to play instruments as well.

Cello

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Is this something that Delia gets to do without competition from sister or mother?

B

Re: Cello

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Yes. She is taking keyboard, too, and again, she is the only one if the family to do so. If I encroached anywhere, I'd be more tempted to snitch Fiona's violin, because I have a lurking wish to learn Irish fiddle.

Re: Cello

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Excellent.

B

Re: Cello

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

This idea for her to take the cello, by the way, was hers in the first place, and it took us totally by surprise. Since she is already taking keyboard, it didn't occur to us that she would want a second instrument, but once she said she wanted to try it, we were happy to try to find a way to make it possible.

[guipago.livejournal.com]

My mom plays the piano rather well.

I have some training in the piano. Some on the snare drum, and a few hours on the clarinet and guitar. :P

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

My folks didn't. (Well, my dad played the recorder when he was young, but he wasn't any good at it.)

They did, though, love music. (And transmitted this to me.) We sang together a lot.

I took recorder lessons (which somehow allowed me to actually get an idea of pitch, which meant I could sing without causing other people pain) from a very nice lady, who later on also taught me flute. I stayed with flute through another teacher, later on, who once told me he thought I should try out for the Greater Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra. (This promptly caused me to stop practicing.) I can still play the flute. Also the recorder. Love 'em.

Later on, when I was 26 or so, I learned how to play the saxophone, kind of tentatively.

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

...I don't own a sax, and kind of wish I did.

[porcinea.livejournal.com]

My parents both played French horn. My mother played in the Univ. of Alabama marching band. They both played in a Louisiana symphony orchestra (I forget which one -- I was v. young). I learned piano, and have my great-great-great-great-great grandmother's piano with me.