“Music speaks what cannot be expressed, soothes the mind and gives it rest, heals the heart and makes it whole, flows from heaven to the soul.” Anonymous (I wish I could find the writer of this bit of truth.)
Hello, MOMS (Mothers of Musicians) I hope that your Thanksgiving holiday was all that you dreamed it would be. I must say that I had a magical Thanksgiving and that it exceeded my expectations.
Bill and I, along with our youngest son, Cody, went to
All of the MOMS made their family’s traditional Thanksgiving dishes and together we ate and celebrated our reasons to be grateful. The highlight of the day was when we gathered in a huge circle around the room, lifted our glasses and made toasts to family ties, new friends and to the adventures of the future. We even toasted Madonna and her song, “Music Brings the People Together.” Later, after dessert, Kelly, my new friends Elaine and Vickie, and I sat at the table and talked for hours about our children and music. Inwardly, I marveled that we did not choose this gathering. It was music’s choice all along. It sought us out, brought us together and jotted us down as chords of black notes on white paper and the more the talked; the more we filled the page. Each small cluster of folks in the room, lent a layer of harmony, and before you knew it, music had written a beautiful background sound tract that played all afternoon. It was such a song of joy. We kept wondering “Why is this day going so well? We’re with people we don’t know that well, and yet, it doesn’t matter! It’s magical!” It was a day that God had blessed.
Oh well, enough of that. Most of you were not there and it’s not fair to go on about something that everybody didn’t experience. I do hope, though, that in your future gatherings, always listen for the background music that is written by those in attendance. It is fascinating!
All right, let’s shift gears now. I did promise you that I would tell you about how we started the musical learning experience for our children; but once again, some of my story is wrapped up in it too.
The year was 1998 and our oldest child, John, turned sixteen. Because all of our older children had had piano lessons and seemed to be interested in music, we got him a Yamaha guitar and a guitar chord wall poster that had every chord known to man on it. We thought he was born to play the guitar because he had strong hands with long fingers; hands that were made to play bar chords. The guitar sat in his room for a few months and finally, his sisters showed an interest in it and asked if they could learn how to play it.
During this time we had been playing the sound tracks for “Braveheart” and “The Titanic.” The songs had such a Celtic sound to them and I was drawn instantly and played them constantly. I was stirred by the quote in the beginning of the movie, “In the year of our Lord, 1314, patriots of
Now I can’t say what it was about that quote that grabbed me so, maybe the “warrior poets” part, but combined with the movie sound tract, that duo was not just flirting with me but seduced me by the second date. I know now what it was (the Spirit of the Ancient of Days,) but at that time I only knew that when I heard the music and imagined myself a warrior poet, I was transformed into creativity’s lover, ready to create and write my own stream of words that flowed above my head every time the music began to play. I felt that I was tapping into something ageless and brilliant and to make it appear before me, all I had to do was play that type of music and the gate would open.
We had bought a CD at Wal-Mart, a Sound Scapes style CD that was all Irish music. There was one song that I would play over and over; Ashokan Farewell. It moved me to tears almost every time I heard it. It was one of the background songs in the PBS Special, The Civil War. As they played the song, they read letters that soldiers had written to loved ones back home and they would show actual pictures taken during the Civil War. To me, I thought that the soldiers sounded like warrior poets, their letters beautifully written but describing a hell they were living in. I would listen to that tract over and over, not realizing that the Spirit of the Ancient of Days was at my beck and call during that time. I just knew that a tremendous energy that inspired creativity was there, and for months, rested on our house.
I have since looked up “Ashokan Farwell.” Jay Ungar wrote it in 1982. It was not written during the Civil War and until that PBS Special, had nothing to do with the war. Mr. Ungar wrote it because he was involved with some summer workshops and was so sad to see them end and say goodbye to his friends that he wanted to find a Scottish lament to express his sorrow. He couldn’t find one and decided to write his own. I heard tangible sorrow in every note of that song. There was, however, one note that was played in the song that I actually thought the composer put in there to weep for him. I would feel grief spill out and over the notes as the violin played the forlorn song.
I walked into the girls room one day, during the time they were begging to learn how to play the guitar, and asked them to listen to the “Ashokan Farwell.” “All right, so if you want to learn how to play music, then tell me if you hear a note in this song that cries.” I played the song separately to Natalie first and then Stacey. Both of them heard the note the first time and pointed it out. “OK, that’s what I think too,” I said. “I just wanted to know if you would recognize the emotion there.” I just wanted to know if they were sensitive to music emotion. “OK, then, let’s get the guitar in John’s room and try a few things.
I began to play and sing a simple folk song, “Five Hundred Miles.” I then explained what melody and harmony were and asked them to sing a harmony note if they heard one. Rather embarrassed, Natalie softly sang a harmony line. She understood it. Stacey followed by singing harmony to my melody. I started switching it up. Natalie, you sing melody and Stacey you sing harmony. They got it.
The next lesson was how to hold a guitar and how to play simple chords. I taught them how to place their fingers and strum with different rhythms. I taught them everything I knew in a period of about three days. In about two weeks, they had totally by-passed me and were playing things I had only dreamed of playing. They followed the wall poster chart and they could play every chord. I was amazed.
The Spirit of the Ancient of Days rested upon our home for months. The kids learned the guitar with amazing speed and started singing songs with harmonies. Jeremy took an avid interest in the drums and we bought him his first drum kit, a 1963 Ludwig set. It was beautiful and let me just say, the boy learned to play!
Somehow we had tapped into creative purpose and it ran like a river through our home. Next blog, I’ll tell you about how Bill and I, as parents, put limitations on the music the children listened to and tell you how “well” that went over. Until then, “teach your children.”
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