My Father’s Musical Legacy

My father and I had a complicated relationship with music and each other when I was growing up. He gave me my love of music, for which I’m grateful. But he also gave me my fear of performing in front of others. Worse, his impatient and negative criticism of my attempts to make music eventually convinced me that there was no point in learning to play an instrument or become a better singer, because I would never be able to please him. A different kind of child might have used his criticism as a motivation to practice harder. A different kind of child might have become determined to master an instrument or her voice in order to prove him wrong. But I was not that kind of child. I was sensitive and unsure of myself around my talented father. I needed gentle feedback and positive support. That wasn’t what I usually got.

My father started taking piano lessons when he was four. I don’t know what his teachers were like or whether he enjoyed his lessons. Perhaps he had impatient, negative teachers himself and that was where he learned the approach he later took with me. I do know that my grandmother was strict with him about his practicing. By the time he was in high school, he was an accomplished pianist. He played Rhapsody in Blue at a concert with the school’s orchestra. He played in a dance band in bars and clubs when he was in college. The money he made at these weekend gigs helped to support our young family until he graduated and started working as an engineer. Later, when our family joined a church, my father taught himself to play the organ and served as the organist and choir director. He wrote some of his own organ music, including a cantata. He also played the piano for a local theater group, and even recorded himself playing stride, a form of jazz piano playing that grew out of ragtime.

When I was a girl, visits to my grandmother’s house always included some music-making. My father played songs on his childhood piano and I sang along. Some of our favorites were On the Atchison, Topeka and the Sante Fe, No! No! A Thousand Times No!, and Darktown Strutters Ball. It was a lot of fun and made my grandmother happy. She loved to hear my father play. It must have made her feel that all the years of paying for his lessons and forcing him to practice had been worth it.

We had a baby grand in our living room at home and my father played it frequently. When I was very small, I loved to sit next to him on the piano bench and watch his fingers moving up and down the keyboard. When I was a bit older, I loved to go to the church with him when he practiced his organ music for the Sunday service. I would turn the pages for him while he played through the prelude, offertory, and postlude a few times. Then he would ask me to sing the hymns for him so he could practice them as well. I would go and stand at the back of the sanctuary and sing as loudly and beautifully as I could. I thought I was a good singer and assumed my father did too.

For most of my childhood, my father was my piano teacher. I didn’t enjoy my lessons because he was a very harsh teacher. His withering remarks often left me in tears. I always tried to practice when he wasn’t at home. If he was around, he’d wait until I was done, then go into the living room and play all of my pieces over. Perhaps he did this because he just enjoyed playing the pieces he was trying to teach me. But I felt humiliated, as if he was saying, “You’re playing them all wrong. This is what they should sound like.”  I needed reassurance from him that I could eventually bridge the large gap between my abilities and his by taking one small step at a time. Instead, it seemed to me that my father wanted me to admire him and accept that he would always be the best. 

When I was in the fourth grade, I wanted to learn to play the flute. I loved its pretty silver color and the beautiful sounds it made. Perhaps these sounds reminded me of my mother’s whistling. She loved to whistle and had a strong, beautiful tone. She often whistled in the morning, when she was making her breakfast. I loved hearing the tune she was whistling become more and more clear as I descended the stairs to the kitchen before school. As a child, I worked hard to learn to whistle myself and practiced until I too had a strong and (I thought) beautiful tone. When my mother was sick, her whistle was one of the things we lost.

It’s also possible that I wanted to learn to play the flute because it was an instrument that my father couldn’t play, so maybe he would be less critical of my attempt. 

My elementary school had a music program which enabled students to rent an instrument, take lessons, and eventually join the school band. My parents agreed to let me participate, so we rented a flute and I began my lessons. They were taught by the band director, Mr. Revelas. He was loud and gruff and I was instantly terrified of him. Needless to say, the lessons did not go well. I felt crushed by the harsh negative feedback Mr. Revelas gave me on my playing, and after just a few weeks, I wanted to quit. It was too much like having piano lessons with my father. My parents urged me to be patient, to practice more, and to develop a thicker skin, but I was so hurt by what I perceived as unfair criticism from Mr. Revelas, that I dug in my heels. I knew my parents were upset about the money I was wasting and disappointed that I was giving up so easily. But I was upset that they seemed to be defending Mr. Revelas instead of me. Eventually my parents gave in and let me stop the flute lessons.

When I was in high school, I finally convinced my father to let me take piano lessons from someone else. He grumbled about the cost, when he was perfectly capable of teaching me himself, but eventually I persuaded him. My teacher was a very supportive woman and I made good progress with her. But I still felt very self-conscious playing around my father. It seemed to me that I would never be able to play as well as him, that I would always fall short. My only power seemed to lie in refusing to even try. So once I left home, I stopped playing the piano all together. 

One year in high school, I wanted to try out for a part in the school musical. They were doing Finian’s Rainbow. The audition song, How Are Things in Glocca Morra?, was challenging. I don’t remember whether I asked my father to help me practice or whether he insisted on helping me. In any case, I found myself beside our piano, trying to sing the song while he played the accompaniment. I had always sung around the house and liked the sound of my voice. I had fond memories of singing songs for my grandmother when we visited her and of singing the hymns for my father when he practiced the organ. But this felt different. Knowing that my father was listening so carefully to me made me nervous and self-conscious. It was like having a piano lesson with him. 

I tried my best, but I kept running out of breath and struggling with the high notes, even though I was a soprano. He told me I didn’t have enough air because I wasn’t breathing from my diaphragm. I’d never had singing lessons and had no idea how to do that – I wasn’t even sure where my diaphragm was. He tried to show me what I needed to do, but when I didn’t get it right away, he became impatient. He also told me I wasn’t projecting enough and that I would never get the part if I wasn’t louder. When I told him I didn’t know how to sing any louder, he claimed that I just wasn’t trying hard enough.

I’m not sure why my father was so hard on me that day. Maybe it was because I was older now and he had higher expectations of me. Or maybe it was because the audition would involve singing in front of other people and my father was concerned that I might fail to do well. In any case, stung by his criticism, my singing got worse and worse. I ended up crying too much to continue practicing. And I felt so discouraged that I didn’t go through with the audition. 

After that, I still sang along to the radio when I was washing the dishes each evening and I still sang along to my records when I was in my bedroom with the door shut, but I remained self-conscious about singing by myself so my father could hear me. Eventually I was no longer able to sing by myself in front of anyone. I no longer thought my voice was beautiful. I no longer thought I had the ability to play an instrument. More and more, I kept my artistic pursuits a secret from my father. I spent hours writing poems in notebooks, which I hid from him so he couldn’t subject them to his fault finding.

Despite all this, years later, when I had children of my own, it seemed natural to sing to them when I was rocking them to sleep or comforting them after some mishap. Sometimes my son Caleb, who was an extremely sensitive child, could not tolerate singing. It was too much stimulation for him. But my two daughters, Hannah and Rutie, always loved having me sing to them. I found a book called Rise Up Singing that contained the lyrics for 1200 songs. It helped me recall the words to so many favorites from my childhood and young adulthood, and I sang them all to my kids: old time songs like Oh Susanna, You Are My Sunshine, and Swing Low, Sweet Chariot;  pop songs like Up on the Roof, Blackbird, and What the World Needs Now; show tunes like Where is Love, Do Re Mi, and Over the Rainbow. I began to love the sound of my voice again and found that singing was as soothing for me as it was for my children. Maybe I could never sing well enough to please my father, but it didn’t matter any more. I could sing to my kids and they would not be critical.

All three of my children took music lessons and played in school ensembles. My daughter Hannah played the flute and the piccolo, my son Caleb played the euphonium and the bass trombone, and my daughter Rutie played a variety of percussion instruments. My husband Benson and I never criticized our children’s playing and tried not to pressure them to practice. We let them know right from the start that we would pay for lessons and instruments, but that practicing was their responsibility and we wouldn’t nag them about it. We figured their teachers would provide all of the necessary pressure to practice and it was best if we stayed out of it. Once they were old enough to play in ensembles, we knew that the natural consequences of not practicing would be better motivation than any badgering from us. We did help them through rough patches with teachers they didn’t like or periods when they felt discouraged. But we made sure they knew that they didn’t have to continue taking lessons if they didn’t want to.

We were very pleased that all three kids decided to stick with their lessons from elementary school all the way through high school. Each of them auditioned for and was accepted into the high school wind ensemble, which was the most challenging of the high school instrumental groups. Benson and I became “band geeks” – we attended all of our kids’ concerts, volunteered every year when their high school hosted the regional music competition, and attended all of the Patriots’ Day parades in which they marched and played. As much as I loved attending their concerts, I also felt a bit wistful every time, wishing I had stuck with those flute lessons in the fourth grade.

In addition to percussion instruments, my daughter Rutie also played the piano. Her last and favorite piano teacher was Ryoko. Ryoko was a sweet person who believed that the most important part of being a piano teacher was encouraging her students’ love of music. She didn’t criticize Rutie if she didn’t practice, she just encouraged her to do so in a very gentle way. She allowed Rutie to pick some of the music she learned, and didn’t insist on her learning music she hated. Rutie adored Ryoko and they became quite close. Knowing that our family loved the animated films of Miyazaki, and that Rutie loved the music in the films, Ryoko worked hard to find the sheet music for several of the scores and Rutie set about learning her favorite pieces. One of my happiest memories of Rutie’s high school years is of listening to her practice Miyazaki music in the living room while I washed the dinner dishes in the kitchen.

After listening to Rutie practice for years, Benson decided that he would like to take piano lessons too. He had learned to play as a child, but hadn’t touched a piano for decades. He became Ryoko’s student as well. When we moved to Seattle, he found a new teacher and continued his lessons. He has slowly improved over the years and enjoys the process of mastering each new piece and discussing various ways to approach the music with his teacher. Sometimes I wish that I was also taking piano lessons. I imagine sitting on the bench and putting my hands on the keys. But so far, I haven’t taken the next step. Even though my father is no longer living, his critical voice is alive and well in my mind.

Music has remained central to our children’s lives as they’ve moved into adulthood. Hannah has taught herself the clarinet so she can play the 1940’s lindy hop music that she loves dancing to, and both Caleb and Rutie have taught themselves the guitar. Benson and I have continued our tradition of attending concerts, although these days they’re usually orchestral or chamber music performances. I love live music, but a touch of the old wistfulness always remains.

As an adult, I tried unsuccessfully for years to summon the courage to audition for a chorus. But when we moved to Seattle, I found a chorus that didn’t require an audition. I joined during the summer and, for the first few months, it was a simple joy to sing with other people. But when fall came, we began rehearsing for a concert in December. I was immediately nervous and thought about not participating, as a few other members of the chorus were doing. But I didn’t want to give in to the fear my father instilled in me all those years ago. So I kept going to rehearsals and I practiced my music on my own until I knew it perfectly. But at the dress rehearsal in the church where we’d be performing, I learned that not only would I be standing in the front row, where everyone in the audience would be able to see me, but I would also be leading my section up the aisle and onto the stage. I was terrified. What if I made a mistake?

On the day of the performance, I was so nervous that I was shaking, my heart wouldn’t stop pounding, and I felt like I couldn’t breath. I wasn’t sure I could go through with singing in public, even as part of a large group, even without my father in the audience. But it was too late to back out. I found it difficult to chat with my fellow chorus members as we waited for our cue to enter the sanctuary. But when it was time, I managed to make it up the aisle without stumbling and took my place on the stage. The chorus quickly filled in behind me and the director stepped to the podium. The pianist played the introduction to the first song. All of the rehearsing and practicing kicked in and, along with my section, I began to sing. During the first song, I sang quietly. I didn’t make any mistakes, so during the second song, I started to relax and sing a bit louder. By the third song, I was thoroughly enjoying myself, singing all out and smiling at the audience. By the end of the concert, I was exhilarated, partly from the glorious singing I’d been part of and partly from triumphing over my old fear, my father’s legacy.