Everyone who grew up in a home like mine can relate to my story—It’s rare, but by no means unique. Mom was a classical pianist and the church organist. Dad was a musical prodigy.
They produced six kids.
Everyone was expected to play—piano for starters, then a brass instrument of your choice. And mom always hoped for a vocal ensemble. You were expected to play, to practice, and to win competitions.
Fifty years later, most of us are still musicians, including four Masters degrees in music (none of them mine). Most of us still play brass. But there has been a lot more divergence than originally expected. We produced one opera singer and several jazz-ish musicians. A couple of us have actually backslid all the way to rock’n’roll. And saxophones, God forbid.
Classical and sacred music was playing in our home all day, every day. No pop. No rock. Country was never an option; jazz was questionable.
Me . . . I was the trumpet player.
I possessed mediocre promise. At least until 11th grade, when I had the extraordinary fortune of attending Wickliffe High School under legendary band director, Chuck Frank, but that’s too much history for this small space. I started college as a music major, but wisely switched to art my junior year. If I have any claim to fame as a trumpet player, it is simply that I never quit.
LIFE LESSON: If you stick with something long enough and really keep working at it, you can accomplish things beyond what you originally had the right to hope for.
But my real music story is that I
discovered—fairly late in life—that I have a knack for learning new instruments. So that is what I have done. You can see reflections of that in the videos on the next page. To be fair to myself—and especially to my listeners—I make no claims to excessive virtuosity on any of these instruments.
I claim only that I make
interesting and sometimes
pleasant sounds. I entertain myself.
“WHAT KIND OF MUSIC
DO YOU PLAY?”
1. Mostly improvisational.
My favorite thing is to play a chord
progression I’ve never played before,
then solo on top of that.
2. Jazz-ISH.
I’m not smart enough to play real jazz.
3. Spotify has helped me out with this;
I stumbled onto a playlist called
“Nordic Jazz”. To my surprise,
I found myself saying, “Hey! That’s
like what I play!” So there ya have it—
I play like a Viking.
