Musical Beginnings

I have no idea if either of my parents had any musical leanings or longings. By the time I came along, if they did listen to music or sing or play anything, I never witnessed any of it. Mom did occasionally listen to music on the radio and I'd heard tell that Daddy was a great dancer once upon a time, but I did not grow up in a house filled with music. There were no family sing-alongs or performances. I was not musically influenced or inspired by my parents.

My siblings dabbled in piano. I guess they took some lessons. Mac played this same piece over and over. I think it was a Bach etude. Drove me crazy. I don't really remember Maggie playing although I do seem to recall a time when she taught me the dual Chopsticks thing. We had a piano because Granddaddy thought "the children" (meaning Mac and Maggie) should have one.

Maggie taught me to sing my first song, Herman's Hermits', "I'm Henry the Eighth," or whatever it was called, complete with a bad Southern hillbilly attempt at a British accent. "And every one was a 'enery..." I loved shouting, "Second verse, same as the first!"

I suppose she was trying to make up for teasing me about not being able to sing "Happy Birthday." If I'd known then what I knew now (I consider Happy Birthday to be a tuneless funeral dirge), that wouldn't have fazed me. But I didn't and I took it quite personally and once I was old enough, I began diligently singing along to her records. I had, apparently, a good ear. She doesn't make fun of me any more.

Grandmom had an organ. I don't remember ever hearing her play. I loved fooling around on it, though, pulling out all the stops, literally, and messing about with the pedals. The loudness was quite satisfying. I have no idea why she had one.

The same grandparents had a stereo and we did sometimes listen to music, especially at Christmas. Bing Crosby's White Christmas comes to mind. And Firestone Christmas albums.

I don't remember us having a home stereo but fairly early on, I must've either had my own record player or used Maggie's, because one record I loved to listen to was Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who. The piece about the "pair of pale green pants with nobody inside them" riding a bicycle scared the beejeezus out of me! And I loved the one about the woman with a bunch of children, all named Dave. "Come into the house, Dave!" she would yell, and they'd all come running.

At some point I got ahold of a copy of The Charge of the Light Brigade. My, oh, my, did I love the dramatic grandeur of that record. To this day, I have a thing for anthemic, larger-than-life music.

I also had one of the Firestone records. "Do you hear what I hear?" I loved that one.

The summer before fourth grade, my brother's boyfriend and my brother lived with us for a brief period of time. (I have no idea where they stayed or how this came to be. Quite shocking, really.) The boyfriend, Dan, played the trumpet and had it with him and he let me fool around with it. I was smitten. So when it came time to join the band that school year, I knew what I wanted to play: the trumpet. And when the instruments came in and I was handed mine, I'd been given a cornet. Now, perhaps this was an honest mistake but I did not read it that way at all. I was indignant! I felt certain that Mr. Hurt pulled a switcheroo based on me being a girl and that girls shouldn't play trumpets and cornets were more "feminine." I felt certain he hoped I wouldn't know. Wrong, Mr. Hurt. Wrong. Innocent mistake or not, let me just say, I got my trumpet.

I took the trumpet, and the idea that Mr. Hurt thought a girl shouldn't play one, very seriously. And spending weeks just blowing on the mouthpiece just didn't cut it. So I found two pieces of sheet music in the piano bench, "The Theme from Hawaii Five-O" and "Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme," with which I was familiar, and taught myself how to play them. This was the musical equivalent of refusing to use training wheels when I learned to ride a bike. I'd show him, by God.

I guess there are two main paths to music: either you're born into it in some way, or you are drawn to it as a form of rebellion. Mine was obviously the latter. Maggie says I can't sing. I teach myself to sing. Mr. Hurt thinks girls shouldn't play the trumpet, I excel at it.

What started my songwriting and guitar playing? Hanging out with my Hippie sister and her boyfriend. They were older, cool, not rednecks, and NOT country. So, rebellion against the dullards that surrounded me, rebellion against living the expected life. Once Emily and I started writing and playing together, we planned to put our guitars on our backs and ride our bikes across the country, playing wherever we stopped.

I do not regret that we didn't ever make that bike ride. But I do regret that I did not learn to play the piano. I took lessons in my early teen years, but didn't stick with it very long. I tried again in college and enjoyed "class piano," but I wasn't really able to master the whole left hand/right hand thing by that point. I managed to get through the piece I chose, "The Moon's a Harsh Mistress," but not very fluently. I do still have hope that someday I might settle in enough to actually learn to play.