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All I want is having you and music, music, music Teresa Brewer |
Dominic
Vautier
12-1-2016
My real life started with music I suppose. It wasn't so much the idea that this kind of stimulation could suddenly awaken my brain, but it did take nine years for anything to really happen inside my head and it was probably done by music. I was nine years old in 1950, a little late I would think when I first began to recognize the world. I can look back through lists of top 20 songs and everything begins dramatically in 1950. Nothing before that time even remotely registers but everything afterword is very familiar, and always associated with events. In 1950 I seemed to have awoken to a wonderful world of shapes, sounds, harmonies, and melody.
It may be in my blood. My mom and dad were both musically gifted. Pop could play piano, banjo, and occasionally violin, although mom despairingly called his violin a "git-fiddle". She herself had a nice violin and played once in awhile when her arthritis wasn't kicking up. She did play well and was said to have a good set of pipes. She told me stories about when she was young and played in church. Sunday was a good day for her and she would scurry from church to church to play. The protestant churches always paid her more.
So began my musical
journey through life, a fortunate journey in some respects. I had a good ear and a strong voice and managed
to get into about every catholic choir around. At nine years
old mom forced me to take
piano lessons and I hated every second. Only later in high school did I
return
to the keyboard, and sort of never looked back. My piano skills
were marginal at best but I found it very useful to know how to read music. In
high school I also learned other band instruments including the
trombone, clarinet, and saxophone. In college I played the
bassoon.
Who could have lived in a better time? Strong female vocalists of the early 50's followed by Elvis, the Beatles, the Eagles, the folk revolution, and this wave moved on into the eighties. What a ride and I was on? Now I am catching up on Big Band 1940s music and all the stuff that happened before that.
My interest in the guitar started about 1955 when I got a 5-string banjo. The positions are similar to the guitar which I started playing soon after that. Just about any song can be accompanied with three of four basic chords and this was of great use during my camp experiences later in life.
I began collecting LPs in
the early 60's. It became an obsession. When I left my first wife
all I took
with me was my Beatle collection. That was the only thing that really
mattered. I maintain a fair collection today, but nothing
too big. It's no longer an obsession.