THE OLD UPRIGHT

 …tickling the eighty-eights? The tradition continues…

 

In about 1944 at age 22, Mom ran away from home which had been Houston, Texas. She planted herself in Glendale or Pasadena. Her first purchase of any consequence was a brand new Knabe ‘upright grand’ piano. “They’re the best made!” Mom said, and although the Steinway folks might disagree with her on this particular proclamation, Mom was never wrong.  So, I believed her. 

         Mom’s Knabe was hauled from pillar to post in Southern California, and ultimately to Chico where Brother Beebo and I would practice scales and etudes on it. Well, Beebo did. As a little kid, there weren’t too many hills I was willing to die on, but not practicing the piano would be one of ‘em. Mrs. Scotchler, first and later Mrs. Chamberlain both ultimately threw up their hands and told Mom not to bother bringing me back for lessons.

         Mom’s old upright probably weighed a ton and a half. Its walnut finish was nearly black and the keys were capped with real ivory. Although I wouldn’t actually play the thing, I did like opening the front and watching the hammers hit the taut harp wires inside as I ran my fingers up and down the keyboard. This was especially fun when I’d prop open the front and then put Susie, our Siamese cat, on the ivories and watch her rocket across them, leap to the floor and tear out of the room to hide in a closet somewhere.

I never really learned to play the piano. My stubbornness and stupidity won out (as it often does to this day). But I could pick out a tune by ear using my right hand for the melody while pounding chords with the left. That only works if I stuck with the key of C. No black keys necessary.

As Time Went By (apologies here to Dooley Wilson), I grew up, left the house, got married, got divorced and never had a piano. Occasionally, I’d stop by Mom and Dad’s and sometimes I’d sit down at the keys and plink something out. I’d turn and find Mom leaning in the doorsill and when she knew I saw her she’d say, “Don’t you wished you’d have practiced for old Doris Scotchler?”

 

Shortly after that divorce, and still wincing from it, I found myself at a dinner hosted by a local California Teachers’ Association chapter. Tables lined the so-called ballroom at the Holiday Inn and I sat in a folding chair next to and opposite other teachers, none of whom I knew.  

Across the table was, as I recall, a rather attractive woman, about my age, who opened the conversation with: “If you’re not really careful, I bet we’ll be playing footsie before this event is over.”

I was aghast. For two reasons. One: having married way too young, I never engaged in whatever footsie was. Two: fresh off failure, I was certain one thing leading to another would only leave the woman thinking “What’s up with this guy?” This presupposes that I had any idea of what ‘one thing leading to another’ even meant.  

I drew my size 14s under my chair and hoped whatever they were going to serve us would limit the need for small talk. But small talk ensued and as we chatted, I discovered she was ‘between relationships’ and that she was housing an upright piano that her former mate or boyfriend had rescued from the First Baptist Church on Salem Street just before they tore the building down. “I don’t play the damned thing. It’s huge and all it’s doing is collecting dust,” she reported.  

The old First Baptist Church housed the very Sunday School from which Beebo and I played hooky in our youth, so I said: “Would you take hundred bucks for it?”

 

Brother Beebo was a freelancer. He owned a trencher for digging foundation footings, chopped wood like Honest Abe and, best of all, moved pianos. And now I had a job for him.

         The house I bought after the divorce was on East Eighth Street, the inbound lanes to Chico of State Route 32. Footsie Woman, it turns out, lived on a cross street a couple of blocks away. Beebo, judging the effort necessary to load the old upright into his pickup for a two hundred yard transport had a better, more practical idea. Carefully lifting the treble end of the behemoth, he slipped his piano dolly under the middle and gently set it on the floor. Using two planks, he nursed the thing from her porch, across the walk and onto Alder Street. Finding the crest, he turned the unit and headed north toward 8^th. When traffic was clear, he bulled the assemblage into the middle of the State Route, pivoted it, and pushed it the block-and-a-half down the highway to my address. Passing traffic slowed as many had likely never seen an old upright piano being manpowered in the middle lane of a major through-way before.

         Within about twenty minutes the old piano was resting in the new-to-me living room at 788 E 8^th. Beebo hustled back to pick up his pickup. Meanwhile, I plinked out a tune with my right hand a feebly created chords with my left.  Shortly, Beebo arrived, cracked open one of my PBRs and said, “Don’t you wish you’da practiced when you were a kid?”

In the forty-plus years I’ve owned the piano, it, too, has moved from pillar to post: Chico to Soulsbyville; Soulsbyville to Sonora; Sonora to Roseville, then Rocklin then here. Early on, in an effort to strip and refinish it, I disassembled the cabinet finding remnants of color crayons, raffle tickets, and a tattered picture of the baby Jesus with some lambs opposite the words to “Jesus Loves Me” which I learned myself to play.

         Now, the old Baptist upright resides in my studio about five feet from my elbow as I type this.

 

Yesterday was Thanksgiving and after decorating the Christmas Tree, grandson Hudson – about 13 – pulled up a chair and began more than plinking on my piano. Apparently, he’d captured some music from contemporary movies or TV programs – tunes and melodies and musical literature I hadn’t heard before. His right hand and his left hand played beautifully in concert with one another from what I could tell. 

But then he launched into “Carol of the Bells.” I swiveled in my chair and watched him command the instrument until my eyes clouded with tears. That damned old thing had never sounded so good and I thought to myself:

         Don’t you wish you’da practiced when you were a kid?

© 2024

Church of the Open Road Press

REBIRTH OF THE OLD TUBA

Best Music in Oakland is a business of note

I’ll make this quick as most readers prefer exhaust notes to those from brass instruments.

In 1966, as a junior high kid in beginning band, director Charles Van Bronkorst needed someone to play tuba and me, with big buck teeth, looked dumb enough to do it.  I learned to play the little Pan American E-flat pretty well so, the following year, Charley put me on a Bb-flat and moved me to “Concert” band.  I would only toot on the little E-flat for one school year.

Or so I thought.

Fast forward twenty-five years and Sister Sue accepts the band position at my old junior high.  Readying herself to toss out decades-old instruments, she somehow discovered the little Pan American as the one I had used, sold it for salvage value (to herself), cleaned the thing up a bit and presented it to me as one of the best Christmas presents ever.  That was 1990-something.

In my years as a school principal, I kept the horn in my office and sometimes tooted out the theme to the Flintstones on it at recess much to the delight of the littler kids on campus.

Before

Upon my move to the district office and then my retirement, the little tuba sat sad, neglected and increasingly tarnished in various corners at home.  Until…

…Until a grandkid or two came along and as pre-Kindergartners wanted to blow on the thing.  By then – 2015 – the valves were frozen and the tuning slides dried and stuck and the little shavers could only get one note or maybe an overtone out on it. I resolved to get the little bass back to playing condition so the kids could have a more tuba-like experience.  But where?

Brother Bill,  a very accomplished lower brass player, said, “The best place on the west coast is Best Music in Oakland!”  It does not pay to argue with Brother Bill.

I took it in for a quick assessment.  “What’ll it cost to get the valves working and the slides greased up?”

The young lady glanced at the horn and said, “Probably about $300.”  That was far less than what I thought.  Then she added, “We’ll also see if we can shine it up a bit.”

Three weeks elapsed when I get a phone message: “Your horn is ready to be picked up.”

Dropping everything I bolted down to Best in our Bolt… (round trip to Oakland would be 190 miles and the car’s battery still had a quarter of a charge in the battery by the time I returned home.) …and parked in the echoy garage across from the Federal Courthouse.

Best Music (the storefront is labelled A&G Music) is located in the basement of an ancient building on 14^th Street.  There’s an antique freight elevator that may or may not work.  The stairs complain greatly with each step.  Into the catacombs below, a glass display counter of violin bows and clarinet reeds is backed by a wall of new and refurbished instruments.  A small rack of sheet music is visible.  But the main expanse proves to be a layout of work stations where soldering, plating, polishing and all manner of repair is undertaken.

After

I hand my claim check to a young man at the counter.  He disappears into a work area and returns with couldn’t possibly be the old Pan American. It is polished to like-new.  The valves work better than when I was in seventh grade. The slides slide!  I so wanted to blow a note or two right down there in the repair shop, but my chops hadn’t kissed a mouthpiece in over a decade.  Before I asked, “How much?” I recalled the words “probably about $300.”  This was going to be more.  Much, much more.  It had to be.

“$175.”

“What?”

“$175.”

Walking on a sunlit Oakland sidewalk with the shiny little tuba transported me to those halcyon, who-the-hell-cares days of being an oblivious 13-year-old. Before I placed the treasure in the way-back of the Bolt, I couldn’t resist knocking out an E-flat major scale in the parking garage.  The sound reverberated like the anthem in a big league ball park.  The grin on my face hurt my cheeks.

Slamming shut the hatch to the Chevy I turned to hear a fellow in a neighboring stall say, “If you got yourself a folding chair and a used Big Gulp cup from the 7-11, you might could find a corner and go into business for yourself.”  We laughed as he tossed a leather attache into the back seat of his up-scale Tesla and gave each other the electric car nod.  I followed him out thinking, "Yeah, well, I've got this tuba..."

o0o

Note:  Here’s some information about Best Instrument Repair Co and their host A&G Music: http://www.agmusic.com/index.html  A shout out to a company that does more than one would expect for less than one might predict.  Also, know that if you’re in the market for a new or used instrument, this outfit should be on the short list of places you check out.

© 2019

Church of the Open Road Press

THE SONG MY SAMSUNGS SING

 

A Church of the Open Road Mini-Memoir

(and this one’s a classic)

About a year ago, when we moved into our new-to-us house, and having left the old pair at our previous residence, we found ourselves in the market for a washer and dryer.  Consulting a leading consumer magazine, we fell into the purchase of the first laundry units we’d ever owned not sourced through a US corporation: Korea’s Samsung.  The new set does a marvelous job cleaning our laundry with more lights, buttons and sounds than we’d ever understand.

For example, whether it’s the washer or the dryer, when the immediate cycle is complete, a sweet little tune is chimed in a brisk 4/4.  I hadn’t heard this rif before and figured, since the company is headquartered in Seoul, perhaps it was the Korean national anthem.  I began to salute, out of respect, and long for some spicy Korean barbecue, a taste sensation unavailable in our new town.

With our transition from the Sacramento area, I’ve had to adjust the presets on my Nissan’s radio to new stations. I’ve always liked classical music and, many times tuned into Cap Radio’s KXJZ after a particularly taxing day.  In our new environs, there’s a fine classical outlet that is based in San Francisco.  The selection of music and their informative commentary has made KDFC (88.9) my go-to when travelling anywhere within their signal range.

About a week ago, while heading south on the 101, a familiar tune aired, played by a piano in front of a string quartet.  Suddenly I was consumed by an overwhelming urge to pull to the side of the freeway, fold t-shirts and remove the permanent press from the dryer before it wrinkled. 

My knowledge of Franz Shubert’s catalog has always been limited, but it grew a little that day.  I’d been listening to his Piano Quintet in A major, D. 667, commonly known as  “Trout.”  Here’s a link to a lovely performance of movement 4, the tune our Samsungs sing: http://video.mywapblog.co/watch?v=z24M13BnYjM

Still, a week after this revelation, I’m thinking how odd that the Republic of Korea would choose this melody for their national anthem.

© 2016

Church of the Open Road Press

AMERICAN CULTURAL TRAGEDY: THE DECLINE OF MUSIC IN SCHOOLS

Item:

Line 49 - Band/Music - Eliminate or support by parent donation only [School District Trustee Minutes]

Item:

...music has been cut to the bone at the elementary and junior high school levels; without those schools feeding the high school, there is no program…  [Newspaper Article]

Item:

…no new students will be admitted to the music education program at Chico State in the fall.  The music education option, which aspiring teachers take, is being suspended.  [Newspaper Article]

Item:

…because every dollar has to count, some educational programs that we value, such as music, will draw the short straw.  [Newspaper Editorial]

As a kid who picked up at tuba in seventh grade and never fully put it down, I have been asked to join in the campaign to upend Chico State’s decision suspending the music education program (that's the program that prepares folks to teach music in schools) for the upcoming academic year.  Sorry, I can’t.  Administrators were left with few options.

A Chico Enterprise Record article reported that only 24 students are currently enrolled in the Music Education option at CSU, Chico.  Of those, about 20 are slated to graduate in June.  That number is in dispute.  But what cannot be disputed is that the university administering an undergraduate program for only a handful of students doesn’t pencil out.  So, as crappy as the decision is, it may be the only decision that could be made.

Why?  Recall the laws of supply and demand.  The more widgets a factory can manufacture, the cheaper the widget becomes.  However, when demand for the widget wanes – think buggy whips – it doesn’t matter how cheaply they can be made, there is not market and therefore no need.

Am I comparing dedicated music teachers with widgets or buggy whips?  Not intentionally.  But examining the trustee minutes and the two newspaper articles above, it is clear that the market for music teachers is in - how shall we word this? - decrescendo.

My e-flat tuba from 7th grade

That is ironic, because here’s what we know about music education:

·      Kids involved in music perform at higher levels on standardized tests.

·      Kids involved in music report that they have a greater sense of belonging to a community.

·      Kids involved in music are less likely to engage in gang activity or criminal endeavors.

·      Kids involved in music are more likely to attend and graduate from four-year colleges.  (And individuals who graduate from college earn higher salaries and thus, repay the tax dollars invested more than those who do not graduate a post-secondary institution.)

There’s very little bad that can be said about offering music as part of a comprehensive educational program Kindergarten through twelfth grade.  Except for one thing: 

You can’t test music by filling in bubbles.

If you can’t test it – if there is no measurable result – then there must be no value to it either to the students who must be simply wasting their time in band, to a society which clearly must not benefit from the arts and to taxpayers who demand measurable results for every penny sent to any government entity.

Still, as citizens we are loathe to see any programs we support end of in the ditch along side the highway to austerity.  We demand music, athletics, drama, vocational education, science labs, small class sizes, special education programs, gifted programs, and high test scores for all.  Beyond schools, we insist upon police protection, fire protection, safe roadways, foolproof telecommunications, clean drinking water, adequate sewage treatment, parks, playgrounds, swimming pools, safe air traffic, and, of course, national security. 

We just don’t want to pay for ‘em.  The historic roadmap out of recession has nearly always involved government spending – either treasury dollars or borrowed dollars – on infrastructure and other programs in order to prop up employment and get money circulating through the economy.  Taxes on this recirculation help to retire the debt.

But currently, a tiny, powerful few [an example might be a group known as ALEC] are whipping up a boisterous and willfully ignorant minority – they only need a third of the electorate in states like California – to slam the door on exactly the type of economic policy that would steer us out of the doldrums.  They do this by moving the target of angst from government largesse to government debt to public pensions to a socialist, Kenyan president to whatever wave they can ride until the wave is proven false.  Furthermore, in whining about the "size of government," they force teachers, firefighters, police and other tax contributors out of the work force and into the enlarging pool of those needing government assistance.

The result?  Among many: no money for music in our schools and no need to train the music teachers of our future.

We get what we pay for.  Right now, we are paying for membership in the community of third world nations.  And who is among the losers?  For one, the kid who misses the opportunity to pick up a tuba in Junior High and carry what he learns through a satisfying and productive life.

Resources: 

What ALEC says about ALEC:  http://www.alec.org/

What others say about ALEC: http://alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Exposed

© 2012

Church of the Open Road Press

INSIDE THE ENVELOPE

Your heart knows the words so you sing along –

sometimes in silence.

WHEN I ENTERED THE ENVELOPE, I was first impressed with the darkness. The room wasn’t dark – just darkened. Mid-day, no lights were on; drapes partially drawn. The outside’s overcast filtered whatever ambient light to the point that I would have turned something on somewhere in the house.

Next, it was the music.

I’m not sure if what I believe is fact of folly. But I’ve been told that sitting next to a waterfall soothes. Angst is dissolved by ionization that occurs when water tumbles over rocks and into a pool releasing electrons from their magnetic orbit and freeing them to course about. These negatively charged electrons do something positive to the body. So, in the vicinity of the waterfall, we are both energized and relaxed.

I attribute this energy and relaxation, in part, to the very sound of falling water. The rush. Its gentle cacophony. Its music.


MOM IS PRESSING 90. Dad, her constant foil, died sixteen years ago. Macular degeneration has effectively stolen her sight. Reading is laborious; television, a chore. Cooking is a problem; cleaning, unsure. A 22-year-old nephew now lives with her doing exactly what 22-year-olds should do. Coming, going, eating, sleeping, coming, going. Living.

Loathe to admit it, essentially, Mom lives alone.


IT TOOK A FEW MOMENTS for my eyes to adjust. I’d driven nearly two hours to Mom’s in the muted daylight. But the inside of the house was dark. Well, darkened.

Inside, music played. Choral music. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir performed on her Bose Wave radio, singing religious and patriotic songs, and show tunes. And standards. They were in the room with her. It’s just that you couldn’t see them in the darkness.

She told me it was the greatest music ever and I located her in the rocker she’d bought for herself as a wedding present back in 1948.

I settled into dad’s old leather chair.


WHEN A CHOIR SINGS – even a good one – it is not the case that you can make out every word that is sung. Like falling water, each syllable is a tiny droplet whispering as it slips into the pool at the base of the falls. The collective effect is a rush. A gentle cacophony. Music.


MOM TURNED ON A TINY MAG-LITE flashlight that she kept at hand. She fumbled with the Bose remote, and then switched the light off. A few minutes later, she rose, went somewhere behind me, switched on another Mag-Lite, did something, switched it off and returned to the rocker. She alternated manipulating the remote and running little inside-the-house errands. Always returning empty-handed to the rocker where she settled for longer and longer moments.

We’d visit a little and then she’d say, “Listen to this one…” And she’d share a tiny bit of history recalled by the song.


IT WAS AS IF she’d been slipped into an envelope: one that was about to be sealed. All that was inside was her life. And the music.

© 2011
Church of the Open Road Press