Music, Music, Music

    Music has always been important to me.  I think my music appreciation started when as a child we lived a block away from my Scovil grandparents.  My dad came from a large and gregarious family.  They lived on the corner of Johnson St. and Charlton St. and we lived one block away on the corner of Charlton and Smith.  Everyone used the back door at their house that went right into the kitchen.    Against the back wall to the left as you entered was a coal burning cook stove that always had a large pot of coffee on the back and there was a huge round table in the middle of the room where the crowd gathered with a lot of laughing, talking and an occasional drop of something with spirits.  And often, sometime during the evening, our mother would go to the upright piano in the front room and begin to play.  Mother played 'by ear', which means she didn't have lessons but just had a natural ability to hear a song and know the melody.  The rest of Dad's family would drift in and stand around the piano.  The room was usually lit by just one  lamp and the flicker of the fire through the isinglass window on the heating stove door and  they would sing and our Uncle Stan would harmonize with whatever Mom was playing.  She played the popular songs of the day - the 1940s -  plus the standard's like When you Wore a Tulip, A Bicycle Built for Two and, of course, When Irish Eyes are Smiling but sometime during the songfest, she would play My Buddy, that was my grandparents favorite song, in fact Grampa's nickname for Grandma was "Buddy".
     As the oldest daughter, I was given piano lessons.  I would go to St. Patricks Convent and take the lessons from Sister Mary Frances.  If I didn't hold my fingers up off the keys in the proper manner, a rap on the knuckles from the pencil in Sister's hands. (I have always thought that it is a wonder that I don't have knuckles twice the size they are because of Sr. Frances and her pencil, Sister Mary Patricia who would rap your hands with a ruler as she walked up and down the aisle between desks checking on the proper grip of your pen and my mother at home giving us a 'zing' with a fork if we didn't hold our dinner utensil correctly.)

     I was lazy and didn't practice and was never good at playing but my sister, Judy had the same ability as Mom and was a natural.  For some kind of program at School, We - brother, Russ who played the trumpet, Judy, the clarinet and our cousin, Ed, who lived with us for a time,  playing trombone and me on piano - played in our own little band.  I don't remember the occasion or what we played and I believe it was a one time thing, obviously not memorable because all I really remember is all of us practicing in our living room.  All three of them played in the St. Patricks Grade School Marching Band.  Russ and Dave Dunne took turns between the Cymbals and the Big Base Drum.  Judy remembers that our brother stopped beating the Base,  when in a parade they were behind an equestrian unit and Russ didn't watch where he was walking.  Judy took over the next year on the Big Drum - if Russ could do it she could too -  and was a little more careful where she marched.
     When Judy and I would do dishes, we would sing and harmonize.  One of our favorites was  Carolina In the Morning.  If we were singing a fast song we worked fast and if we sang a slow song....  Sometimes if we were singing too many slow songs, and taking too long, a parent would call out from the other room:  "Sing something faster!"

     How I wish now that I had practiced that old piano in the living room.  Hmmm!  maybe I should get myself a keyboard and see what happens.  After all, there's no one these days with knuckle rapping pencil.

     I tried to download Doris Day's version of My Buddy, my grandparent's 'song', but can't seem to do it.  Any of you IT savvy types who want to try, please do.  It's the version with all the movie star couples.  Which makes me consider another blog about my favorite movies.