Words and Music, Part 2

So, where did I leave off? Well, I did the Maypole Dance as a freshman in college in Boston — and took all the available (all three) music classes at my college…

After college graduation, I couldn’t find a job that used my education, so I took a crappy job. Several months later, I moved to Florida with my boyfriend. A year later, we broke up, and I moved back to Boston.

In the mid 70s I found jazz dance. I don’t remember how I found this particular school, but you could find me taking three 90-minute classes in a row in downtown Boston in an unairconditioned third-floor studio — in the summer. I got pretty good, but a few years later, when the instructor (whom I had a crush on) finally formed his dance troupe and left me out because I need to “lose some weight,” I cried and quit. I was also taking a few voice lessons at the time, and poof, my dreams of Broadway were crushed!

But then in around 1980, I saw a small write up in the magazine of the Sunday newspaper about a tap studio that sounded intriguing, run by an old tap master. I had found my home! Here’s something I am really good at! So I tapped, and then taught, and did some performing there, and then continued when I moved to California in 1993. I continued tapping until the early 2000s, when there was just nowhere to go and nowhere else to learn. I remember teaching the day before my first baby was due.

When I left tapping (I still attended a master class once in a while, though), I decided I wanted to play the piano again. But not classical. This time I wanted to play jazz. And I knew I wanted a male teacher. I found the perfect teacher. I discovered a new part of myself that was passionate about music (and, unfortunately, about the piano teacher, but that never got off the ground). This new part of myself that I discovered, however, was not compatible with my husband, so I left. My kids were teens (almost anyway) by now. I never really got very good at jazz piano and quit after a couple of years. But I was still in my music epiphany.

I took a music and computers course at the local junior college, and then a music theory course … and then dared to take a jazz improvisation class, attempting to play the piano. I went to the local jazz club and bookstores that had jazz musicians. I did own a piano, and then bought a keyboard as well. But I never really learned to play.

At the same time, I decided I wanted a master’s degree in music. Just because. I had always wanted a master’s degree, but couldn’t afford any more education when I finished college. So I applied to the music program at UC Berkeley. I knew I wouldn’t get in because I didn’t have the music background. And I was right.

But I heard about a master’s degree in Humanities at Cal State, where I could concentrate in music history, so I did that. It was a remote program, so to this day, I have never been to that school. It took me six or seven years, taking one or two classes at a time, but I managed to finish. At the same time, when I was nearly finished with this degree, I returned to school for a teaching credential. I was now single and needed to earn a living. A couple of friends suggested I become an English teacher. I was never really committed to it, but I did it and taught for 11 years. It was never “me,” but it got me into my “grammar era”!

My master’s thesis for the Humanities degree was “Women in Music.” It really wasn’t very good, but reliable sources tell me that it is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Library. I have never been there, but I  hope to get there. My love of music, especially old rock and roll, demands that I visit!

So, since 2010, when I published my first grammar book, I have been in my grammar phase. Just recently, though, I have veered back to music. Look back to Part I of this post, paragraph 7.  I have been once again inspired by the same musicians all these decades later…now it is oldies, which I have always loved: the music that came from that Motorola transistor radio!

There is a rock and roll club where I live. It is really the only club I am interested in joining. So I am teaching myself rock piano.  And now we fortunately have You Tube and online lessons of all kinds. I am making some headway.

Playing music with others is entirely different from playing by oneself. I learned that when I attempted to play with the Community Band back in California. I had never played with other people, but I figured I could. I figured with my background in piano, I could play in the percussion section: bells, tympani, cymbals, vibraphone. I did it. Not well, but I tried!

Oh, I don’t want to give the impression that I never had any jobs writing, since this is Words and Music. I never even came close to writing for Billboard Magazine, but I worked for a couple of newspapers during that year in Florida in the 70s. Then I spent six years as a technical writer, editor, and then supervisor at a computer company while I was still in Boston. I also did a lot of freelance copyediting, including a five-year stint at a telecommunications company in California. This was all before becoming a teacher. 

Rock on!