Words and Music, Part 1

My life has basically been words and music — and throw in some motherhood and coffee, and that is about it. 

You pretty much know the words part: English major; childhood poet;  technical writer; technical editor; editing supervisor; freelance editor; English teacher; and then author, publisher, and blogger.

But it was really music that got the whole thing started.

I guess I was sort of a musical kid. My mother (thank you) started me dancing at the age of six. I continued dancing through at least junior high school. Not a great ballet dancer, but I was good at tap from the get go. For the six years covering junior and senior high school, I played classical piano. Once again, I was no prodigy, but I wasn’t bad (considering how much I practiced – or didn’t). 

When I was five, I think I wanted to be a teacher, but that didn’t last long. 

I don’t remember when I first got into listening to music…oh wait! Yes, I do. My parents had a bunch of albums, among them South Pacific and The King and I. My best friend, Linda, and I would listen to them all the time. I don’t remember when I got into popular music. But I distinctly remember that I got a Motorola transistor radio for my ninth birthday, and it was stuck to my ear from then on. So I must have been listening to popular music before that. That transistor radio is pictured in this post, but mine was beige. 

When I was about 12, the Beatles had arrived. I liked them, but not like some girls did. There was another group I liked (their name isn’t important here), actually LOVED! And that got my real obsession started. I started writing song lyrics, mostly love ballads. I generally had a melody in my mind, but wrote only a few of them out. I could write music, since I played piano (and three guitar chords). They were all in the key of C, with C, F, and G chords — and sometimes even A and E minor. I still have all of those lyrics and sheet music. 

I once sent one of my songs to one of those (scam) places they advertised that would put music to your lyrics and create a demo and try to sell it. I remember that they claimed  Tab Hunter’s “Young Love” came from them. Well, they pretty much ruined my song, and made it a country tune, which wasn’t my intention. Needless to say, that was the end of that. 

So my high school yearbook says that my ambition is to be a songwriter.

During those high school years, I also thought about being an actress, and sent away for information to the University of Southern California, which has a famous acting program. No, my parents did not like this idea. And did I really think I could act? I took some “drama lessons” when I was in elementary school, and I got the lead in the 4th grade play as Betty the Bookworm, but I wasn’t involved in any of the plays put on by my high school. Nor was I in the band. 

Since songwriting seemed a far stretch, I thought that since I always liked to write (and was co-editor of the high school yearbook), I could write for Billboard Magazine.  Since the time I was 12 or so and madly in love with a certain singing group, I would walk a couple of miles each way to Cal’s, a newstand that sold Billboard Magazine. The magazine came out on Tuesdays, but Cal’s usually didn’t get it on Tuesday. So, I would go there again on Wednesday and sometimes on Thursday — until I found it and could scour it for news of my boys. This went on for a while….

If I was going to be a songwriter — or write for Billboard Magazine — I needed to be in New York. I lived in the Boston area. So when it was time to think about college, I thought about New York. I applied to New York University, Barnard College (the sister Ivy League to Columbia U), Connecticut College (probably because they took someone from my high school the year before, so I figured they would take someone this year, maybe), and Simmons College in Boston, where my cousin had just graduated. 

My parents took me to Barnard for an interview. They were afraid of my going to “dangerous” New York!  They also took me to Connecticut College, which was way too snobby for my taste. I remember all the girls (it was a girls’ school at that time) had long dark straight hair and eyeliner. Clones.

I am not bragging, but I got into all those schools with scholarships. To this day, I wish I had gone to Barnard. Maybe I would have ended up working for Billboard Magazine — or becoming a songwriter. Then I realize I wouldn’t have my beautiful children and granddaughter and published books, and that we usually are where we are meant to be. 

Why didn’t I go to Barnard? — besides listening to my parents, which I shouldn’t have? Well, I really wanted to study journalism, not just English. Barnard was strictly liberal arts, and I would have had to be an English major. Not that I couldn’t have written for Billboard Magazine with an English degree from Barnard! Simmons offered a major in publications, which was print media — writing and graphic arts. So I did that. I was actually a double major with English as my other major. And I took every music class I could — all four of them that Simmons offered: Baroque era music; Classical era music; Romantic era music; and music and literature (which was basically opera — and I will never forget how much I loved Tristan and Isolde).

Aside from being in the dance club freshman year (and dancing around the Maypole at 6 a.m. on May 1), I was not involved in any music during college. Aside from going to discos in the 70s, there was no more music. I got a job as a technical writer. I got married. I had two kids.

Was that the end of music for me? Stay tuned for Part 2 next week.