My Reprise

My Music -- In first grade…I guess it was every week when the music teacher would come around, they would get out the box of percussion instruments such as castanets, maracas, triangles, and sticks. I would always get the sticks. But still, it was always fun. In third grade we all played Song Flutes, a form of small plastic fipple flute like a Tonnette. I took to that rather well. In my second year in third grade (I repeated third) I have no memory of music. In fourth grade we all played harmonicas...little ones. That was a snap for me because I already had developed that skill and my father had bought me a big Horner chromatic harmonica.
I don't remember my age--probably I was around nine or ten when my real music lessons began. I walked about three blocks to Hampton Road where Mrs. Montgomery, who kept a caged parrot on her front porch, tried to teach me piano. I was afraid of her and hated the lessons. I can't remember how far I got in the Thompson's books but I sure was relieved when my mother let me stop. Sometime later I got a piano teacher-- Mrs. Gould who would come to the house. I was less afraid of her and hated the lessons somewhat less. I got to where I could passably play some nice sheet music. The Marine’s Hymn was probably the pinnacle of my piano career. I always hated the book of chords and scales and never understood the purpose, hence my profound ignorance, to this day, of music theory.
I was in the fifth or sixth grade at Belvedere school when from Howard Swyers I began taking lessons on the baritone. It was a horn handed down by my brother, Norman. It had no case but my mother made a cloth sack to put it in. I may have gotten as far as Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.
I was in junior high school when my mother got me to take private lessons from Robert Sliker on the French horn. I had once seen one in a movie newsreel and thought it the most magnificent instrument. I wasn't much of an asset to Conniston Jr. High School Band but gradually became more comfortable with the band although I never felt competent.
In Palm Beach High School band my feelings of inadequacy continued. I never developed the skill to make me feel important. High school band, in spite of my feelings of inferiority and my unease with socialization, was, to that point, easily the most important institution in my life. I didn't discover until years later that French horn was one of the most difficult instruments to play. I should have stuck to the baritone or taken up the trumpet.
In church during my high school years I got started singing in a little youth choir in church and then moved to the senior choir. Also, during my senior year of high school I got into The Barbershoppers (SPEBQSA) for a short while. I was in numerous choirs over the years. While in the army I sang in church choirs--one outstanding one in El Paso Texas. In 1962 I began singing with Palmer Singers and continued, off and on, with them for more than forty years. Palmer Singers was an ensemble of variable size from around sixteen or eighteen to thirty-five or so which performed all around Palm Beach County in churches, auditoriums, hotels, and homes for private parties, conventions, etc. Often I was paid but never very much. During many of those years I also sang with the Methodist church choir up until the mid 90’s.
In 1965 I began playing French horn with The Symphonic Band of the Palm Beaches. That lasted a year or two. In 1970 I bought a guitar and worked at that over the years with a commitment which was off and on. Around that time my good friend, Caroline White, gave me a soprano recorder which I diligently applied myself to. I bought a tenor recorder as well and played with a nice recorder group that gave a few concerts. I enjoyed that a lot until the group dissolved. In the late 1980’s and into the early 90’s I played in a church handbell choir and liked that a lot. Jane gave me a penny whistle in 1985. I like it and still play it occasionally but there doesn’t seem to be much demand for my performance. I bought a bowed psaltery in 1987 and found it to be a most enjoyable instrument. I still play the psaltery for my own pleasure.
In the nineteen eighties, in spite of my musical ignorance, I tried my hand at music composition and produced five or six unnotable short pieces. It gave me more appreciation for the composer’s art.
I can remember in my early childhood attending concerts of the Norton Gallery Men’s Glee Club in which my father and Uncle Glen sang. During my youth—maybe preteen years—I would go to classical music concerts with my parents. We were members of the Civic Music Association which I subscribed to up until the 80’s. After that, Jane and I were members of Regional Arts until our volunteer ushering at The Kravis Center gave us exposure to almost more musical performances than we wanted.
I wanted to list here some of my favorite pieces of music but found it too difficult. I like too much in so many genres-- even bad music. I’ve been moved by folk, thrilled by theatrical, enraptured by liturgical, impressed, at times, by jazz, and inspired by Beethoven’s Ninth, and Adagio Cantabile, Pilgrim's Chorus in Wagner's Tannhauser, the Verdi and Brahms Requiems, Schumann's Reverie and Villa-Lobos' Aria from Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5.
Perhaps there are some who become so deeply involved as to lose themselves in music. I’m envious of them. The truth is, unless it’s Cole Porter or Jerome Kern my concentration is often brief and even when I try to stay engaged, my mind wanders over a myriad of far away cares or to the nearby hummer.
- -Let's take it from the top.