A New-To-Me Piano

When I was young, my grandmother had a white lacquer upright piano. I would play this despite not having lessons. I loved that old piano. We moved away when I was seven, and I started taking lessons with my cousins. They had a spinnet, which was just fine. When we moved again, my parents found an old upright from a Shaky’s pizza with many layers of paint. My mom refinished it down to the wood, and I loved that piano, too. It had a gold harp and sounded lovely.

If you get the feeling I moved a lot, I have. I had to let go of that piano when I was sixteen and we moved again. I bought a 1915 Baldwin upright for $2.50 in college – the piano tuner said I stole it – and the adventure to move it into my second floor apartment was on. That piano is still in storage with my dad, and I’ll have to look in on it soon.

I bought a house last week. In my lifetime, this is move seventeen. I’ve been traveling a lot for my day job and juggling the everyday stuff (like moving is everyday stuff) while I’m home.

Last Wednesday I signed the papers. Movers were scheduled for Thursday. I sent a message about a piano ‘free to a good home’. In the reply I got a phone number and was told to call a woman about her piano. The movers weren’t even gone by the time I had called her, so I asked them if they wanted to move a piano. They enthusiastically agreed.

Several years ago, I received a keyboard as a gift. It did not have 88 keys. When I tried to play a whole note, the sound didn’t last as long as I needed it to. There are some things a keyboard like that is good for, but it never satisfied the longing I had for a real piano.

The keyboard did get us through the practice my son needed when he took piano lessons. My daughter played a little but was never serious about it. At the time she preferred violin.

When the boxes all arrived from the movers, I had an empty space by the stairway. I realized a real piano would fit right there. I know there are keyboards that would fill the void. Some are sophisticated enough to record music digitally with computers. But my love of “real” pianos made me want to fill that space.

After several calls to the moving company and the woman with the piano, I had a moving crew meet me to pick it up. She had owned that piano for 40 years. The harp has 1926 scrawled on it. The outside isn’t in the best condition, but it has been recently tuned and sounds lovely.

Not long after the moving crew brought the piano in, my daughter wanted to play with it. My son held the cat so the cat could play it, though I’m not sure the cat appreciated it as much as the kids did. I smile watching the kids and the cats – they remind me so much of my childhood with pianos and cats.

Be careful on Marketplace, though. I may have also purchased a backpacker guitar (which I forgot on this business trip) and a djembe drum for my son. I may have placed myself in Facebook timeout for a while. I can’t wait to get home and play on my real piano.

April Theme: Traditional Music

The link below has a few traditional songs to listen to. While there are many types of traditional music, the cultures that brought these songs into existence had several things in common. These commonalities lead to a possibility of finding a universal concept system in music.

Sixty traditional cultures worldwide were studied for rhythm and melodic complexity which varies and did not give specific information. However, how religious a song is, how much energy it brings up, and how formal a song was accounted for much of the variability. Lullabies, love songs, dance songs, and healing songs all created different patterns by these three dimensions.

Ask your music student about the traditional music and what they are drawn to, whether it is the type of instruments, the vocals, or the rhythms. How do they feel about the categories and how songs fit into them? Love traditional music and see how it is influenced by the culture that creates it.

Kids on Theme

Our students comment on our lab themes – and I love reading them. Here are several comments on last month’s theme, 2000s music.

“I noticed how fashion was such an important part of 2000s music.” Daniel

“I liked the part where you couldn’t see who was singing.” Charlie

“I like how 2000s music doesn’t have a lot of real instruments.” Henry

“Every pop song started with yeah yeah yeah.” Emmy

Many students noticed the back beats and bass, the rhyming words, and many of them loved how catchy those tunes were. Once they say it, I can hear all the yeah yeah yeah sections in that time. Do you?

“Haley is kinda burnt out on 2000s pop from hearing her mom play it too much.” (I think I like Haley’s mom.)

Some comments about the music videos – costumes and dance moves and many singers – reminds me of watching MTV when it was music videos. Remember those days? I don’t see as many music videos unless I’m on YouTube. When did you last YouTube your favorite song to see what was done on the video?

The students also noticed the videos have a lot of drama. Many male singers and female dancers are paired together in this time frame. (That could just have been the songs we chose to highlight the time.) Also, Taylor Swift started singing in the 2000s, and she was a teenager. Look where she is now!

Summer Camp – Save the Dates!

MTMS is looking at the summer calendar. Back by popular demand, our annual summer camps are going to be a lot of fun. It’s a great way to learn some new fancy skills, make friends, and beat summer boredom.

Time to look at your summer plans and see which of our music-themed camps your student wants to participate in:

Jun 9-13: Songwriting Camp

Jun 23-27: Swiftie Camp

Jul 14-18: Rock Band Camp

Jul 28-Aug 1: Wicked Camp

Can’t wait? Neither can we! It’s going to be a rockin’ summer. See you there!