What would you like to talk about today?
I was thinking about music. Not listening to it; playing it.
Okay.
First, I’ll say up front: I’m not very good at it.
No?
No, but I’ve given it a try. With many instruments.
Such as?
I guess a teacher started it. In elementary school. In what grade I’m not sure. But we each were given, or we bought, what you might call a tin flute.
More of a whistle, I guess. A metal tube with holes. I put my fingers over the holes and, depending on which fingers were down or up, different notes would come out. After a while the teacher passed out sheet music and she taught us to play some simple tunes.
It’s a start.
Yeah. And it interested me enough that I looked around, on my own, for something else that didn’t sound so tinny. And I found a plastic instrument called a Tonette.
It had a bit more pleasant sound. And I found another thing — I think it was ceramic — called an ocarina.
Some people called it a sweet potato. It gave a slightly different sound.
So you were getting interested in playing music.
Yeah. And I guess my parents saw that, because they went and bought a piano and signed me up to take lessons.
How did that go?
Not too badly, as I recall. And I liked my teacher, George K. But that was in 1941, and the war was raging in Europe. And he went in the Army. My parents got another teacher, but I didn’t get along with her too well. And I quit taking lessons.
That was it with the piano?
‘Fraid so. Went back outside to ride my bike. Or play sandlot baseball. Other interests.
Well, fast-forward a decade or two. I’m a young adult who at least likes to listen to music. And I especially liked to listen to Benny Goodman and his small groups. Like his trio, with Benny on clarinet and Teddy Wilson on piano and Gene Krupa on drums.
I especially like the low notes from a clarinet. Some people like the stratospheric flights into the upper register that Artie Shaw did. But I like the sound of the low notes, as in his “Rose Room.” You know that one?
Not sure.
Starts out real low and mellow.
Anyway, I bought a used clarinet from a friend of a friend.
And I took lessons from a local musician, Ken P. After a while he realized what I had was out of tune, so I bought a new and better one. Things went better then. My main problem was not practicing enough. And if you let it go too much you lose the muscles you need to make a pleasant sound. You know the work “embouchure”?
No.
I didn’t either. A French word. It means the way you tighten your lips around the mouthpiece. Takes muscles in the cheeks and lips.
If you don’t keep it tight you leak air and you get a bad sound. I liken it to the way you pull the drawstrings tight on a pouch.
And if you don’t practice enough you weaken the muscles you need to prevent leaking air. That was my problem. Don’t practice. Leak air. Bad sound.
Incidentally, Ken told me a story of when he was young and taking lessons. His teacher would check on how much he had been practicing. Know how?
No.
You see, there’s an angle bracket underneath the clarinet that rests on your right thumb. And most of the horn’s weight is on that thumb.
So, the more you practice, the more you develop a callus on that thumb.
Okay
So, as soon as Ken showed up for a lesson, his teacher would grab his right hand and look at the thumb. To check the callus — or lack of one. Ken never did that to me, though.
Anyway, I learned enough that I could practice on my own. Except I didn’t do it enough, and the leaky-air syndrome got to me. I eventually gave up and sold the clarinet to a friend at work. Hope he did better with it than I did.
Was that the end of your musical career?
Oh, no. There’s more. The guitar interested me, and a friend helped me pick one out.
I had found a program on public television that gave guitar lessons. Laura Weber teaching folk guitar. I’d tune in each week and try to practice what she was teaching. And I sent for the book that had the songs she was demonstrating.
You know what would have been helpful? That was back before video recording. It would have been good if I could have taped the programs and learned and practiced at my own speed. But you do what you can do.
Did you keep on anyway?
To some extent. But with the guitar there’s a problem similar to with the clarinet. It gets to your fingers. Not the ones doing the strumming. It’a the ones fingering the strings.
You have to press tightly between the frets, or else you don’t get a pleasant sound. And it can be hard on tender skin. If you practice enough, you develop calluses on the fingers and pressing doesn’t bother you much. But if you slack off, you lose the calluses and the strings can hurt. And I did and they did.
Did you sell the guitar too?
No. It’s sitting in my closet with one broken string. Gathering dust.
Do you get the feeling that I’m a musical dropout?
Are you? Completely?
No. I bought an inexpensive keyboard.
Just to fool around with it, really. You can create a lot of sounds with even a cheap one. And different rhythms. When I pull it out I just improvise.
And there’s just one more instrument.
Another?
Yeah. This may be the end of it. I bought an inexpensive ukulele.
I have it in my office. Within arm’s reach when I’m at my computer. When I get tired of doing my thing at the computer, I pull out the uke and strum a bit.
And here’s the thing. Some chords come easy to me. With others, I can’t seem to make my fingers do what they should do. So I stick with the easy ones. And if a song fits those chords, fine. If it doesn’t, well, there are other songs. That’s my approach. All fun; no frustration.
Sounds like a good way to go.
Yeah. I’ll settle for that.