I wrote this article in 2010. It was published in the Danvers Herald on March 2010. I'm re-posting it here to replace a broken link from my related March 2010 blog posting about childhood music influences.)
Music Lessons Finally Took Hold
By Sandy Nichols Ward
"F sharp!" my grandmother called loudly from upstairs above her living room, where I was practicing. "That F should be sharped." How did she know? She wasn't looking at the little book of piano exercises in front of me. Nana's ability to call out corrections from a distant room astounded me. I hated practicing piano. I just wanted to go outside. I figured that the faster I played through the notes in the assigned pieces, the sooner I'd be free to go. What a disappointment I must have been to my musical grandmother, who supervised my daily practice, and cousin Annie Brewster, who taught me weekly on a piano in her home. Both Nana and Annie loved music and had a life-long interest in attending good concerts. For me, however, playing piano was a chore, a daily obligation.
My father was sympathetic. He spoke of his own dislike for the piano lessons that had been imposed on him, too, at an early age. I took some comfort in the fact that I was not alone, but why didn't he stick up for me and put an end to this? I endured these lessons for about five years, until I grew bold enough to protest. Nana and Annie gave up without a fight, no doubt realizing my lack of talent for piano.
In my teenage years I took up the recorder and taught myself to play simple tunes. My sister objected to the "noise" I was making, so I walked outside to sit under the trees at Locust Lawn. To my surprise, the black and white cows grazing there in the pasture stopped, looked up, walked towards me, and then stood in a semi-circle, staring straight at me while I played. I enjoyed this appreciative audience! My mother's horse stepped forward in his pasture, too, leaning his head over the fence and listening to the music. This was MUCH more fun than practicing piano! No one shouted "F sharp!"
Grandmother's piano, after her death and after we had moved into a larger house, came to us. It sat in the den, right by the heavily trafficked path to and from the stairs, the living-room, the front hall. Both my father and I, at various stages, played it again. I experimented with playing hymns from a church hymnal, figuring out how to make the chords with my left hand. My father got better and eventually, in retirement, purchased an electric organ for the living room and took organ lessons. He really enjoyed playing for guests.
Meanwhile, I moved to California, played one year in a Recorder Orchestra, and later discovered the joys of playing Balkan folk music. At a summer workshop I took lessons in bagpipe, which I figured was just a recorder with a bag attached. Wrong! My skills didn't transfer and I lacked lung power. I tried an end-blown flute the next summer, but couldn't make a decent sound. Next I tried tupan, a double-headed drum. Good choice! As a dancer, I already knew the Balkan rhythms well. It's fun to express them on the drum. I've been performing in folkdance bands ever since. When I moved back to New England in the 1990's, I began performing at the New England Folk Festival each April with Panharmonium, a band that practices weekly and plays monthly in Amherst, MA. I now understand, of course, why my grandmother fussed about each wrong note. I too cringe at a missed F sharp or other error. The music lessons, eventually, did sink in.
