Lessons of Every Kind

 

Lessons of Every Kind

I was a very blessed child.  I came toward the end of my family- the fourth of five children.  My father’s medical practice was well-established and there was ample money all while I was growing up.  My mother wanted me to have every opportunity to develop.  I was encouraged to try everything. I was enrolled in every kind of lesson you can probably think of.  Following is a list of the different lessons I took.

Piano Lessons

 This one was the most important to my mother.  She wanted me to play the piano well.  I took lessons from Mrs. Hunt for about four years.  Mrs. Hunt was a nice woman, but she and I didn’t “click” really well.  I’m not sure why.  I know when my mom took me to my first lesson with her, I was very nervous.  My mom introduced us.  Mrs. Hunt asked me if I was right or left-handed.  I told her I was left-handed.  She then asked if we should choose songs that emphasized the left or right hand (really quite an odd question, don’t you think?)  I said, “The left!”  She just laughed at me and said, “No, the right.”  Why do I remember that 55 years later?  Because I was so embarrassed.  I have thought about it a lot since and really think I gave the better answer.  We should highlight and emphasize our strengths.  She obviously thought we should strengthen our weaknesses.  That little exchange kind of illustrates my relationship with Mrs.  Hunt.  We just saw things differently, I guess.

Mrs. Hunt was a typical wife/ mother in the 1960s.  She taught piano in after school hours, but she had to prepare the dinner for her family.  She would occasionally leave me at the piano while she went in the kitchen to check on dinner. The way her house was arranged, I could see her in there and she could see and hear me.  One day she left me in there and I thought, “This is my chance to play for her a song I composed myself.”  I had spent many hours composing and working on it, and I really wanted to impress her.  When she said she would be right back and to go ahead and play while she was gone, I started playing my beautiful composition. “I’ll bet you can’t rhyme a word with orange” was the song’s title!  That title gives you a clue that it was no masterpiece!  After a minute or two she called from the kitchen, “I didn’t mean to just mess around.  Play one of your pieces.”  I was devastated.  Looking back, I realize I should have introduced my piece better.  But it really hurt.  I never felt like I would amount to much on the piano.  She did not make me feel like I had talent. But, as an adult, I have determinedly learned to play and play well.  When I was a young mother, I set the goal to give myself piano lessons.  I got out my old books, and assigned myself songs to learn, just like a teacher would.  After the kids went to school in the morning, I worked hard and really got a lot better.  I am doing that same thing now.  Working on songs just like I am going to have to pass them off with a teacher. I assign myself two new songs at a time. I love it!  Especially since I am the teacher!   In order to pass off a song, I have to play it through with five or less mistakes.  I count my mistakes out loud and so hope I won’t get more than five before I reach the end of the piece.  Poco a poco, little by little, I am getting better.

But when I really progressed at the piano was when, after my children were older, I had many voice students.  Each Christmas and spring we would present a recital and I accompanied my students in those recitals.  I worked many, many hours on their songs (I worked a lot harder than my students did!) and used the same rules: five mistakes or less in every piece to pass them off.  I made mistakes at those recitals, but I got better.

During  the COVID pandemic, when I was mostly homebound, I decided to give myself piano lessons again.  I spent many hours practicing and “passing off” piano songs. 

I recently was called to be the pianist for Primary in our ward.  I am back to practicing and passing off songs with five or less mistakes.  I am loving it.

When I was an adult, my sister, Patty, organized a Madrigal reunion.  Anyone who was ever in Madrigals (prestigious singing group at Caldwell High School) was invited to come.  Past choir teachers came to lead the huge group.  It was an amazing experience that I will talk about in another story.  But Mrs. Hunt attended that concert, in fact, I think she accompanied the choir in some of the pieces.  I talked with her.  I told her, that, I am sure much to her surprise, I really could play the piano now.  “Oh, you mean that you can play for Primary” (she was not a member of our church, but evidently knew about Primary.)  I said, “Yes, and well, other things.”  I could see she still didn’t think I could ever be good at playing the piano.   Again, I felt sad.  But it helped me realize that the most important thing a teacher can do for a student is to encourage them and help them feel like they can achieve.  First thing, up in heaven, I am looking for Mrs. Hunt.  When I find her, I will ask if I can play for her.  Will there be pianos in heaven? If so, I hope I won’t be so nervous that I make more than five mistakes!

Ballet  I had two different ballet teachers.  Amy Garvey, who was very proper and disciplined and expected that of us.  She was a classically trained ballerina. She would not let us sit down to put on our ballet shoes.  We had to balance to do it.  We did a lot of barre work.  She walked around and corrected us.  Once a year she would check our spine for scoliosis.  I think back on that now and wonder why she thought she should do that?

I also took lessons from Marie Christensen, a cute, little lady in our ward. She was short and round and loving. She taught all kinds of dance and was the polar opposite of Amy Garvey.  It was a lot more fun with Marie.  She put on an annual recital, which was a big production.  She also taught tap, baton twirling, tumbling, and social dance.  Each student could be in a lot of different dances at the recital.  The recitals were long and my dad just hated them.  That’s funny that I remember that.  Ballet wasn’t my talent necessarily, but I enjoyed it and learned some basics.

 

This picture was in our local newspaper, advertising our upcoming recital.  It is so funny.

Tap  Marie Christensen also taught tap.  I enjoyed tapping a lot.  I remember some of the steps and now love to watch tap dancing.  

A picture from our recital.  I'm the one in the middle.

Baton twirling  As I remember, this was a separate lesson taught by Marie.  We learned how to twirl a baton. It was a real challenge at first to twirl that baton.  I really struggled.  I would practice at home.  I remember one day when I was practicing, it just clicked.  All of a sudden, I could do it!  After that, I was rarely seen without my baton.  I twirled and twirled and twirled.

Social Dance This wasn’t a class Marie usually taught, but I remember when she announced she was going to start social dance class when I was probably in 7^th or 8^th grade.  We were all so excited.  Several of the boys I knew also signed up.  I think Marie had to do a lot of recruiting to get the boys to commit (I’ve often wondered since what she offered them to get them to come.  Free lessons?  Homemade cookies?)  I remember Jerry Smith and Rick Hurst were among the recruits.  I can even remember that it was on Monday evenings.  We learned several different dances.  I was at the age that it was so exciting to dance with boys.  We learned how to waltz, fox trot, and swing.  I can still do a lot of the dance steps we learned then.

Hula Dance My mother, who lived in Hawaii before I was born and took hula lessons there, taught hula lessons.  She taught Marie’s daughters, Linda and Laura, in exchange for Marie teaching us dance lessons.  The four of us gathered once a week in our family room and learned the hula.  It was fun.  My mother brought back authentic Hawaiian records from Hawaii and played them on our turntable.  We learned all different kinds of Pacific Islander dances.  We always performed hula in Marie’s recitals.  We also performed at luaus.  For a period there, probably when I was a 6^th-7^th grader, we frequently did luaus for parties at churches and in people’s back yards.  Loris Stewart would accompany us on the ukulele and we would sing Hawaiian songs and dance.  My mother would also perform.  She was a graceful, beautiful hula dancer and certainly the highlight of every luau performance.

Joan, Linda Christensen, and me.

Tumbling  This also was a separate lesson taught by Marie.  We would lay out the mats and do summersaults and other tricks.  I was obsessed with learning to stand on my head and with doing the splits.  I practiced and practiced and practiced.  I would find a wall and try to flip up to stand on my head with my feet against the wall, my head and hands forming a triangle.  Over and over and over again, I would do this.   I can remember my dad commenting on how much I practiced. I think he was a bit worried about the marks on the wall my feet made. I never could do the splits.  I tried and tried and tried.  I wanted to do them so badly.  I still, to this day, when I am 68-years old have dreams in which I do the splits.  I always wake up so disappointed that it wasn’t real.  In my dreams, it seems so very real.  When I get to heaven, I am going to be able to do the splits.  I feel sure of it.

Guitar  I took guitar lessons from my parents’ good friend, Loris Stewart.  He was a gifted musician.  I think I just took lessons for about a year, using a four-string guitar.  I learned a lot of chords and could play several songs, but unfortunately, I have forgotten most of it now.

Cooking   We met weekly during the summer to learn how to cook.  I loved this class.  We cooked and baked and even made candy.  I still make a couple of the dishes I learned then.   This was one of my favorites of all these lessons.  I still love to cook and bake.

 

Horseback Riding   This came about because the Montgomerys were taking horseback riding lessons.  My mom and Eleanor Montgomery were good friends. They talked about it and suddenly Joan and I were included in the lessons.  I don’t remember much about it, except that there weren’t enough horses for everyone (probably because I joined the class) and that horseback riding was not near as fun as it looked! Bouncy! Bouncy! Bouncy!  And Stinky!

Swimming  I don’t remember a lot about swimming lessons, but I do remember my mom dropping me off at the Caldwell pool for them.  I also went to swim team for a short time.

Tennis Mom loved tennis and so wanted me to love it and be good at it.  I remember the lessons and enjoyed playing, but I never got very good.

Voice   Last, but certainly not least, was vocal lessons.  This was the one I loved the most.  I started taking lessons in 8^th grade with Mrs. Gabbard, my choir teacher.  She was a classy lady.  She lived in one of those beautiful, old homes up near the college.  Her husband was a music professor at the college.  She was a kind and good teacher.  Later, I took from Mrs. Schmidt, then Mr. Condon, and then a music professor at the College of Idaho, but I don’t remember his name.  It was a little intimidating to be in master classes with the college students when I was just in high school.  All encouraged me and helped me develop.  I continued taking lessons all through college, though that was not my major. I took from Mrs. Evelyn Harris at Ricks College both years.   After Ken and I got married, he surprised me for our first Christmas by arranging for me to take lessons from a wonderful lady in our ward, Kathryn Visher, who sang with and soloed for the tabernacle choir.  She was my favorite teacher.  I loved lessons with her.  Even though I was not with her for very long, I probably learned the most from her.  I practiced many hours each week and absolutely loved going to the lessons.  Now that we were paying for the lessons, I appreciated their value and wanted to get the most I could out of every lesson. I loved singing then and have ever since.  Singing has brought me great joy through my life.  It was this foundation of taking many voice lessons that helped qualify me to teach voice lessons in my home for many years.  Especially after my own children were grown and gone from the home, I really enjoyed teaching.  I had a lot of students through the years.  Unlike piano lessons, I couldn’t find technique teaching books, so developed my own set of voice lessons, systematically teaching vocal technique.  Now I see that there are lesson plans available online, but when I taught, I came up with my own.  I was going to put them in a book form and maybe even try to get them published.  But I have never done it.  I do still have them.  I spent many, many hours writing and developing them.

 

I am so grateful to my parents who provided so many opportunities for me to learn and grow and discover what I was good at and what I liked to do.  These lessons helped me to discover my gifts and talents and helped increase my self-confidence.