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In 4th grade, every kid played what they called "song flutes" which were really cheap recorders as a way of assessing musical ability and trying to induce kids to take band instruments. I liked it. It wasn't until sixth grade I decided I wanted to try to play the flute. That lasted six weeks. My parents rented one for a year from a local music store. The music teacher thought I was too old to start learning it and he glared at me every week when I tried to play my lesson. He had it locked in his head that you HAD to start a band instrument right after song flute in 4th grade. He scared me and I froze up. The flute was difficult but I was able to play my lessons at home just fine aside from getting dizzy. This music teacher had a bad attitude. He pushed my friend Karen's brother Buck away from band instruments by telling him he had no talent.
Buck got revenge in his own way by becoming a virtuoso on the harmonica. HA! Take that Mr. Alcazar!
After giving up flute, I wanted to take up drums. Drums wouldn't make me dizzy. I picked up a mismatched pair of drumsticks (same weight, different brands) at the music store my sister went to for guitar lessons. I started imitating beats I heard on my Monkees albums. That was quite simple stuff, really. I asked for lessons. Mom said "No." She didn't believe I'd stick with it. She said I had to wait two years and if I still wanted to take drum lessons, then I could. So I tapped on whatever had a good sound for the next two years. I'd sing with my sister as she played her guitar, tapping on the nightstand or the stereo or whatever was handy. Truly, I didn't have great rhythm. I didn't pick up anything other than the simplest beat. Two years later to the day (I'd marked my calendar each year) I told Mom I still wanted drum lessons. She said "No. Learn guitar like your sister."
Well, that hurt but it wasn't that much of a surprise. My mom rarely followed through on promises for me. Sherrie got a big beautiful canopy bedroom set with matching dresser and nightstands when she stopped wetting the bed. I got nothing for years until I demanded a new bed several years after I stopped wetting and got a cheap box springs and mattress. They gave me a cheap headboard for it when I complained about that. This is the story of my childhood. There was never money when my turn came.
But still, I was angry about yet another broken promise. With my sister's permission, I started learning her guitar. She showed me her chord chart and gave me full access to her music collection. The first song I learned was a depressing, angry one. "I am a Rock" by Simon and Garfunkel. It fit my mood. I went on to learn "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" , "The Times They are a-Changin," and a lot of other protest songs I'd been singing with Sherrie. I was blessed that Sherrie was angry with my mom for being so unfair to me because she helped me all she could with things all through my childhood. I love my sister so much!
My reward? For 8th grade graduation after I'd been playing my sister's guitar for a year or so, I was handed a brand-new guitar and a piece of paper saying I was scheduled to take guitar lessons! Whee! My dad handed those to me. He arranged it all. I was beside myself with joy! I'd proven myself to my parents for once. Thinking back, it was the first time I'd turned my anger in a positive direction.
I was hoping to learn the pretty classical stuff I'd heard my sister practicing through the wall of our bedrooms, but dad didn't realize there were different types of lessons to be had and signed me up with the first guy he talked to at the music store. I ended up learning folk guitar. That's OK. It started a friendship with Tom, my teacher, that lasted beyond the lessons. The first thing he did was to have them "set up" my guitar. The strings were much too high off the frets. It made it much easier to play. Sadly, I didn't practice my lessons much back then. My lesson times were spent chatting with my teacher. It was easy to distract him, he was a young married man with a toddler at home. Oh, he loved that boy! I learned to play "Tom Dooley," "Teach Your Children" and a little riff my teacher wrote that I found good for checking the tuning. He taught me a few finger-picking patterns I still remember. I did pick up a classical thing through the bedroom wall. Mostly I strummed and sang unless the little bit of fingerpicking I knew worked. I ended up paying for my lessons with babysitting money when money got tight at home. When Tom voiced his concern about wasting my parents' money when I didn't practice, I was able to say I was paying for the lessons myself. The chance to be treated like an equal by a professional musician was worth it for me. I needed the attention desperately and this was a safe way to get it. My guitar was more a support for my voice which has always been my primary "instrument." As long as I could play well enough to sing to, I was happy.
One Christmas when I was in high school, Santa brought both Sherrie and me beautiful treble recorders. I remembered how to play it and sewed a corderoy case for mine complete with little strap, folding a stiff piece of cardboard to put in the lower end of it so it wouldn't get damaged if it swung out and hit something. I've still got it somewhere in that early 1970's print corderoy! I figured out how to play "A Hard Day's Night" on it right away. It sounds pretty cool on the recorder.
I didn't see Tom from the time my lessons ended when I was 15 until my 21st birthday when my sister and BIL took me out drinking. We went to Mountain Charley's in Los Gatos - which became my "home" bar and to The Garrett in Campbell. Playing at The Garrett was a bluegrass band and I was floored to see Tom playing slide guitar and banjo! I knew he also taught banjo back then but I hadn't ever seen one played in person. WOW! He was GOOD! I was pretty sure I recognized him but it had been six years, so I wrote a note on a napkin asking if he used to teach guitar and banjo at Maple Leaf Music. The waitress took it up to him and left it on his slide guitar during a song. When they finished, he read it, looked up and asked where I was. I called out, "I'm here!" and waved. With a twinkle in his eye he said, "The answer to your question is YES!" Brat. I was a bit drunk but not drunk enough to let people think what they were probably thinking, so I called out, "You taught me guitar!"
I ended up following that band around for the next few years. It felt safer to go to bars by myself when I knew the band. My high school friends weren't into the bar scene at all and I was a pretty lonely person aside from them.
We had a milestone birthday party for my uncle in San Francisco when I was heavily into bluegrass. Deliverence had come out around then, so Dueling Banjos was on the radio. I took my guitar to the party and my cousin John brought his brand-new five string banjo from Sacramento. He showed me how to play a couple of different chords on it and I started picking out Dueling Banjos. Cousin Barry picked up my guitar and started doing the same. Neither of us played the instrument we held at the time. John was a change-of-life child for my aunt Pearl and was spoiled rotten. She bragged how he was a genius and a musical prodigy without realizing these were things that ran in the family. I missed the genius boat but there's no doubt about Barry. John was visibly upset when I began playing his banjo better than he could within a few minutes and Barry was playing my guitar like he'd always played one. We were wailing with Dueling Danjos! Wheee! Within months, Barry had our late Grampa's guitar and I bought a banjo of my own.
Then I took lessons from Tom again. This time, I practiced. He kept giving me more and more to learn each week and each week I came back having mastered it. Once I had Cripple Creek down, he picked up his guitar and we played it together. WHOA! MAGIC! We switched instruments and played it again. What a RUSH! Then Tom cupped his hands and made a static noise into them as he clapped so he sounded like a whole audience. LOL
Too bad that didn't last. Tom went on a world tour with Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown and my lessons came to an end. So did the bluegrass band. They'd gotten into scientology so I was a bit weirded out by them by this time anyway. I tried taking lessons from another local teacher, but he was a total flake and a bit ..slimy.
I borrowed my grampa's violin and tried taking fiddle lessons from the fiddler in the bluegrass band, but her life was falling apart around the time I moved away from home. She raised her rates just as I was discovering I didn't quite make enough to drive my car and eat, much less pay for music lessons. So ended an era.
Buck got revenge in his own way by becoming a virtuoso on the harmonica. HA! Take that Mr. Alcazar!
After giving up flute, I wanted to take up drums. Drums wouldn't make me dizzy. I picked up a mismatched pair of drumsticks (same weight, different brands) at the music store my sister went to for guitar lessons. I started imitating beats I heard on my Monkees albums. That was quite simple stuff, really. I asked for lessons. Mom said "No." She didn't believe I'd stick with it. She said I had to wait two years and if I still wanted to take drum lessons, then I could. So I tapped on whatever had a good sound for the next two years. I'd sing with my sister as she played her guitar, tapping on the nightstand or the stereo or whatever was handy. Truly, I didn't have great rhythm. I didn't pick up anything other than the simplest beat. Two years later to the day (I'd marked my calendar each year) I told Mom I still wanted drum lessons. She said "No. Learn guitar like your sister."
Well, that hurt but it wasn't that much of a surprise. My mom rarely followed through on promises for me. Sherrie got a big beautiful canopy bedroom set with matching dresser and nightstands when she stopped wetting the bed. I got nothing for years until I demanded a new bed several years after I stopped wetting and got a cheap box springs and mattress. They gave me a cheap headboard for it when I complained about that. This is the story of my childhood. There was never money when my turn came.
But still, I was angry about yet another broken promise. With my sister's permission, I started learning her guitar. She showed me her chord chart and gave me full access to her music collection. The first song I learned was a depressing, angry one. "I am a Rock" by Simon and Garfunkel. It fit my mood. I went on to learn "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" , "The Times They are a-Changin," and a lot of other protest songs I'd been singing with Sherrie. I was blessed that Sherrie was angry with my mom for being so unfair to me because she helped me all she could with things all through my childhood. I love my sister so much!
My reward? For 8th grade graduation after I'd been playing my sister's guitar for a year or so, I was handed a brand-new guitar and a piece of paper saying I was scheduled to take guitar lessons! Whee! My dad handed those to me. He arranged it all. I was beside myself with joy! I'd proven myself to my parents for once. Thinking back, it was the first time I'd turned my anger in a positive direction.
I was hoping to learn the pretty classical stuff I'd heard my sister practicing through the wall of our bedrooms, but dad didn't realize there were different types of lessons to be had and signed me up with the first guy he talked to at the music store. I ended up learning folk guitar. That's OK. It started a friendship with Tom, my teacher, that lasted beyond the lessons. The first thing he did was to have them "set up" my guitar. The strings were much too high off the frets. It made it much easier to play. Sadly, I didn't practice my lessons much back then. My lesson times were spent chatting with my teacher. It was easy to distract him, he was a young married man with a toddler at home. Oh, he loved that boy! I learned to play "Tom Dooley," "Teach Your Children" and a little riff my teacher wrote that I found good for checking the tuning. He taught me a few finger-picking patterns I still remember. I did pick up a classical thing through the bedroom wall. Mostly I strummed and sang unless the little bit of fingerpicking I knew worked. I ended up paying for my lessons with babysitting money when money got tight at home. When Tom voiced his concern about wasting my parents' money when I didn't practice, I was able to say I was paying for the lessons myself. The chance to be treated like an equal by a professional musician was worth it for me. I needed the attention desperately and this was a safe way to get it. My guitar was more a support for my voice which has always been my primary "instrument." As long as I could play well enough to sing to, I was happy.
One Christmas when I was in high school, Santa brought both Sherrie and me beautiful treble recorders. I remembered how to play it and sewed a corderoy case for mine complete with little strap, folding a stiff piece of cardboard to put in the lower end of it so it wouldn't get damaged if it swung out and hit something. I've still got it somewhere in that early 1970's print corderoy! I figured out how to play "A Hard Day's Night" on it right away. It sounds pretty cool on the recorder.
I didn't see Tom from the time my lessons ended when I was 15 until my 21st birthday when my sister and BIL took me out drinking. We went to Mountain Charley's in Los Gatos - which became my "home" bar and to The Garrett in Campbell. Playing at The Garrett was a bluegrass band and I was floored to see Tom playing slide guitar and banjo! I knew he also taught banjo back then but I hadn't ever seen one played in person. WOW! He was GOOD! I was pretty sure I recognized him but it had been six years, so I wrote a note on a napkin asking if he used to teach guitar and banjo at Maple Leaf Music. The waitress took it up to him and left it on his slide guitar during a song. When they finished, he read it, looked up and asked where I was. I called out, "I'm here!" and waved. With a twinkle in his eye he said, "The answer to your question is YES!" Brat. I was a bit drunk but not drunk enough to let people think what they were probably thinking, so I called out, "You taught me guitar!"
I ended up following that band around for the next few years. It felt safer to go to bars by myself when I knew the band. My high school friends weren't into the bar scene at all and I was a pretty lonely person aside from them.
We had a milestone birthday party for my uncle in San Francisco when I was heavily into bluegrass. Deliverence had come out around then, so Dueling Banjos was on the radio. I took my guitar to the party and my cousin John brought his brand-new five string banjo from Sacramento. He showed me how to play a couple of different chords on it and I started picking out Dueling Banjos. Cousin Barry picked up my guitar and started doing the same. Neither of us played the instrument we held at the time. John was a change-of-life child for my aunt Pearl and was spoiled rotten. She bragged how he was a genius and a musical prodigy without realizing these were things that ran in the family. I missed the genius boat but there's no doubt about Barry. John was visibly upset when I began playing his banjo better than he could within a few minutes and Barry was playing my guitar like he'd always played one. We were wailing with Dueling Danjos! Wheee! Within months, Barry had our late Grampa's guitar and I bought a banjo of my own.
Then I took lessons from Tom again. This time, I practiced. He kept giving me more and more to learn each week and each week I came back having mastered it. Once I had Cripple Creek down, he picked up his guitar and we played it together. WHOA! MAGIC! We switched instruments and played it again. What a RUSH! Then Tom cupped his hands and made a static noise into them as he clapped so he sounded like a whole audience. LOL
Too bad that didn't last. Tom went on a world tour with Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown and my lessons came to an end. So did the bluegrass band. They'd gotten into scientology so I was a bit weirded out by them by this time anyway. I tried taking lessons from another local teacher, but he was a total flake and a bit ..slimy.
I borrowed my grampa's violin and tried taking fiddle lessons from the fiddler in the bluegrass band, but her life was falling apart around the time I moved away from home. She raised her rates just as I was discovering I didn't quite make enough to drive my car and eat, much less pay for music lessons. So ended an era.
