A few days ago I was visiting with an old buddy. It had been almost 60 years since we'd seen each other and we had a great time talking about the "old days" and swapping lies about all the women we'd known over the years. Somehow the subject of music came up. Music...so many memories. He told me about his time teaching piano and I told him about my time learning to play. I've been playing for 67 years now and loving every minute of it. And I'll never forget my teacher...a guy named Howard.

Howard was a bar-room piano player who couldn't read music. His wife was a trained concert pianist who could. What a pair! I remember the first time I walked into their house all those years ago. The music room was an addition to the original house and had 12 foot high floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Pacific ocean. But the thing I remember the most about that room are the pianos. Two 9-foot Steinway concert grands sitting back-to-back in front of all that glass - his and hers.

The first thing Howard told me was that he wasn't there to teach me how to read music. If I wanted to do that he said I'd have to take lessons from his wife. Rather, his job was to teach me how to play the piano. How to play the piano by feel. And by mood. I really didn't understand what he meant by that but I was soon to learn.

Over the next five years I learned so much from Howard. I learned that music was, indeed, all about feel, and mood. All I had to do was play a few songs by Cole Porter to know exactly what that meant.

The most important thing I learned from Howard is that if you play the same song exactly the same way twice in a row you're doing something wrong because you don't feel exactly the same way twice in a row. It always makes me wonder when I see someone playing in a piano lounge with music in front of them. They've probably only played the song 1,245 times but they still use the music so they can try to play it the same way every time. And I think of what Howard would say.

I'd love to go back to see Howard one more time. Sadly, that can never happen again. But I can always sit and play a little Cole Porter or George Gershwin and remember both he and the "old days". Life is, indeed, good.

Childhood and growing up stories are precious.  And being able to recall them in detail and write them down to share with others is a gift you can keep on giving over the years.  Please let us have some more.

Noel

And you're the best of all at it Noel. Keep it up. I really enjoy your memories. I've never been one for writing down some of the "sfutt" that happened back then but if I can remember a good one I'll write about it for sure.

Back to back Steinways? That's quite an image! No wonder you remember it! Howard sounds like a great guy.

Know what you mean, buddy. No matter what music lessons I ever took, nothing stuck. (Can't do math, either--must use the same part of the brain.) If I didn't play by ear (guitar mostly) I'd never play at all. Jerome Kern's music coupled with Dorothy Fields' loopy "A Fine Romance" lyrics from Swing Time is a favorite, and Gershwin did "They Can't Take That Away from Me" for Shall We Dance--also used in the last Ginger and... her partner... can't remember his name offhand, Barkley's of Broadway. (Never pass up a chance for a gratuitous Ginger reference.) George Gershwin died in his 30s and his funeral was a huge event. What a talent.

Sigh. I open up Apple Music and it's just depressing. But you can still find the old stuff, thank goodness. I don't remember much from 60 years ago (I was just a nipper) but there's something about the 1930s. Amazing the creativity. Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind both out in '39? and The Women wrapped up that  year. All the RKO Ginger dance movies of the '30s. I'm sure it wasn't as much fun to live through. (As Ginger's "Anytime Annie" says in 42nd Street, "Hadn't you heard, dearie? There's a Depression.") I'm sure what with that, and WWII starting it wasn't much fun to live through. My mom and dad didn't have much good to say about it. But, come to think of it, despite all the problems--poverty, strikes, mine violence, the Tri-State Tornado, etc.--they seemed to have good memories by and large.

I'd be interest in your take on what it was like from day-to-day (not that you lived through the 30s, but have a lot closer perspective to the era). I suspect nothing was the same after WWII.

5 hours ago, Tim_Capps said:

I suspect nothing was the same after WWII.

Nothing was the same after Vietnam either.

Noel

 

What's nice is when the lounge player remembers 'your song'...

 

5 hours ago, birdguy said:

Nothing was the same after Vietnam either

Maybe nothing’s ever the same.

My parents both came to California in "The Dirty Thirties". The dust bowl years. My mother from Oklahoma and my father from Texas. Although I never knew my father (he was killed on Guadalcanal a month before I was born) I grew up with the family tales from those years. My mother, aunts, and uncles would often talk about those times - both the good and the bad. In a way I guess I'm a product of the 30's. My parents are from that time. I grew up with Howard teaching me the music from that era. And I think the movies from the '30's, especially 1939, are the best ever.

I remember how my mother would talk about there being no jobs and not much money. But somehow she and dad would always scrape up enough to go to the movies once a week. Her recollections of those movies were my first glimpse of the beginnings of Hollywood's golden years. And what years they were: Gone With The Wind, The Wizard Of Oz, Mutiny On The Bounty, Duck Soup, M, Bringing Up Baby, Modern Times, Stagecoach, The Adventures Of Robin Hood, Wuthering Heights, Swing Time, Olympia, Ninotchka, The 39 Steps, City Lights, Camille, Gold Diggers Of 1933 and 1935, Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, King Kong, Bride Of Frankenstein, Scarface, Dodsworth, Top Hat, The Life Of Emil Zola, Babes In Arms, Stage Door, I Am a Fugitive From A Chain Gang, Goodbye Mr. Chips, Young Mr. Lincoln, Destiny Rides Again. And a host of others.

Some of the first songs I learned from Howard were those from the 30's. Those were his "golden years" and I can appreciate why he taught me the songs from "back then". The very first piece I learned to play all the way through without help (even from a lead sheet) was Cole Porter's De-Lovely. From on then I was hooked. And I still play them today. Just think about these writers, musicians, and singers: Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin, Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart, Oscar Hammerstein II,  Cab Calloway, Benny Goodman, Chick Webb, Duke Ellington, Artie Shaw, Louis Armstrong, Glenn Miller, Ella Fitzgerald, Woody Herman, Fletcher Henderson, Billie Holiday, Count Basie, Jimmy Dorsey, Tommy Dorsey, Bing Crosby, Rudy Vallee, Fred Astaire, Perry Como, Russ Columbo, Johnny Mercer, Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, Hoagy Carmichael, Eddie Cantor, Louis Jordan, Louis Prima. And, again, this is just a sampling.

Do I remember the 1930's? No. Do I love the stories, music, and movies from the 1930's? Heck yes.  

I was born in 1933 and have a vague recollection of the time if not the movies.  My Dad was a printer and he hated unions.  We were living in San Franciso and when his shop went on strike he packed us up and we moved to Denver and later to Chicago.

That's where my memory starts to get a bit clearer because I entered the first grade.  The following year we moved back to California, Oakland, where I entered the second grade.

Funny how memory works.  I don't recall much of school except for the first day and I alrady wrote about that.  But around the corner on our block was a Novelty Store.  And I have a very clear picture of a card that was i9n the window.  It was a little boy sitting on a pot with his pants down around his ankles.  And there was a verse.

Remember when you were a wee wee tot,

And they took you out of your warm, warm cot,

And put you that cold, cold pot,

And made you wee wee, whether you could or not.

In over 80 years I have not forgotten that little card.

My remberance starts in the 40s with Pearl Harbor.  That's when I started to pay attention.

But the 30s movies are  treasure.  Dodsworth and Goodbye Mister Chips are two favorites.  I've seen them both recently (within the past 6 months).

In the 40s war movies were the thing as everybody's attention was focused on Europe and the Pacific.  On our block we had two gold star mothers with gold star flags hanging in the front window along with several more blue star flags in other houses on the block.

We didn't play cowboys and Indians so much as we played soldiers and Marines invading Guadalcanal and Tarawa.

Noel

It's been a tough day here. Too much "stuff" going on I guess. Anyway I just wanted to take a minute to apologize to my college roommate. Somehow I managed to leave his uncle off the list of 1930's greatest musicians. Glenn Miller. My bad Rich. The band really didn't make it until 1939 but once Moonlight Serenade was heard there was no stopping them. The Glenn Miller Orchestra still lives on today - https://glennmillerorchestra.com/ .

Oops: After I posted this I found out that I did include Glenn Miller. I told you it was a tough day here 🙂.

Edited August 17, 20214 yr by W2DR

16 hours ago, birdguy said:

My Dad was a printer and he hated unions.

Heh. My dad was a coal miner, the UMWA was their religion and Papa John Lewis their prophet. I guess that was the hot-button issue of those days. 

3 hours ago, Tim_Capps said:

I guess that was the hot-button issue of those days. 

It's still a hot button issue.  But if I were a coal miner I think I'd love unions too.

Noel  

If I were a coal miner I'd be really worried. There's not much of a future there. Unions or no unions.

2 hours ago, W2DR said:

If I were a coal miner I'd be really worried. There's not much of a future there. Unions or no unions.

Nope. Coal was the lifeblood of Southern Illinois. Most mines are closed. My paternal grandfather was killed in a mine accident and I watched my maternal grandfather, who had been given up for dead in WWI, die of black lung. Mines are a lot safer now, but few, and hard to say they’re missed. There’s a great documentary about Harlan County miners versus the company and what one union leader was capable of to hold power. There’s a famous song “Which Side Are You On” about it, too. Natalie Merchant did a good version.

Thanks for sharing.