The Sound of Music

When you’re over 60, it’s time to stop hoping for some things to happen.  I know for certain now that I’ll never weigh 110 pounds again, I’ll never grow long, thick eyelashes and I’ll never climb a mountain without gasping for breath.  I also don't expect to show any aptitude for music in this lifetime.

I know some experts stress the value of early influences in developing a child's aptitude for the arts or academics or athletics – the Baby Einstein or Mozart in the womb approach.  Well, early musical influences had absolutely no positive musical effect in the case of our family.  My mom must have played the radio and records all the time when I was little because I’ve always known the words to lots of the old standards of the

40’s and 50’s like “Take Good Care of Yourself, You Belong to Me,” “Five Foot Two,” “The Man on the Flying Trapeze,” and just about everything by Frank Sinatra, even though the lyrics often made no sense. (I always thought “Make It  One for my Baby and One More for the Road” was about a guy bringing home milk to his kid.)  Mom also played the piano and sang whenever we visited Uncle Walter and Aunt Elsie.  My dad never got us a piano, and, if you had heard my mom’s rendition of “O Tannenbaum,” you wouldn’t ask why.

Despite our extensive musical exposure, my brother, my sister and I were all relegated to the tone-deaf track in music class early in our school careers.  The fourth grade music teacher decided I was the only girl unfit for

her big production of “Cinderella,” putting me in the same category as the boys in the class who were such hard-core screw-ups that they couldn’t even be trusted to stand on stage holding a cardboard candle.  The same music teacher told my brother he had a vocal range of only three notes which nixed my plan to score a room of my own by sending him on tour with the Vienna Boys Choir.  I’m not sure what musical experiences my sister had in school but I am sure her adult renditions of “Danny Boy” played some role in the untimely demise of her dog, Danny.

A long time ago, I gave up on filling the hills with “The Sound of Music” like Julie Andrews, trying to "Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair" like Mary Martin or belting out “Don’t Rain On My Parade” like Barbra Streisand.  Nevertheless, I do know all the words to about a zillion songs, from 60’s oldies to Broadway musicals.  My versions of “Hair” and the Rydell High alma mater from “Grease” are legendary at our family get-togethers even though some people think “legendary” is the wrong adjective.   While the tunes never come out of my mouth intact, they play loud and clear in my head.  Our friends still talk about the night we were playing “Name That Tune” at Grammars with a violinist and an accordionist and I got “Hernando’s Hideaway” after one note. 

My marrying Paul was like the clash of the cultures, however, merging my musically challenged family who couldn’t even form a kazoo band with his family, all of whom sing beautifully and play complicated musical instruments like the violin, the harp and the cello as well.  The first time he heard my family sing “Happy Birthday,” he whispered to me “Were they kidding?”  As it turns out, his family does the song in eight part harmony while members of my family sing eight different wrong notes at once.

You’re probably wondering what kind of offspring come from a mixed marriage like ours. Well, you get a two-year-old who looks through a mountain of Christmas presents for the one thing we hid and hoped he’d forget and asks, “Where’s my drum?”   You get kids who grind the needle on their Fisher Price record player down to a nub listening to the Tijuana Brass, “Big Bird and the Orchestra” and “The Dinosaur Rock.”  You get piano practice in the living room, band practice in your basement, and guitars, amps, cords and pedals everywhere.  You get adult kids who play the piano and the guitar effortlessly and well, and you get one who occasionally shares his own wonderful compositions with us. What you don’t get is the next Frank Sinatra. 

 The boys’ musical interests inspired me so that, after they gave up piano lessons, I started lessons myself.  I visualized sitting at the keyboard, playing requests without even glancing at the music and barely looking at the keys.  Now I know that is about as likely as me winning the Nobel Prize in Physics.  I also know why everything my mom plays, including “Jingle Bells,” sounds like a funeral dirge. It takes time to get from one note to the next and as for keeping a steady rhythm – forget it.  Luckily, I have a great piano teacher, and I enjoy playing but NEVER in front of anyone else so don’t even ask – sometimes my teacher even has to leave the room in order for me to relax and play my pieces.

Anyway, this past weekend, my family got together for my mom’s 85th birthday. (Actually, just 9/14ths of us got together - my brother and his family were stranded in Milwaukee by flash floods or, at least, that’s his story.)  We celebrated with presents, Graeters ice cream, a dinner for family and friends and an outrageously delicious chocolate birthday cake the size of one of the tires on Mom’s PT Cruiser.  When everyone sang “Happy Birthday,” we sounded pretty good.  I didn’t see Paul flinch and I didn’t hear any howls of protest from Willem either. Maybe there’s hope after all or maybe I should be worried about hearing loss.

I actually have found the perfect role for myself in "Chorus Line" - click below and see if you agree:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NycEtANtwg