The following was written by my late wife Elaine. She wrote a long book, a diary really, from which this is one passage:
Notes from a Teacher’s Diary (con’t)…
One day, J got her left hand on the wrong keys so that when playing the two hands together, meant to be both on the same-named keys but in different octaves, it of course sounded wrong. She said, “It sounded like a shriek.”
J said, at a different time: “I should probably deserve to stay on the same songs this week.”
Whenever I asked a young girl, M, to play me an “old one” from her folk song book, she always chose “Oh Where Has My Little Dog Gone?” – and then after playing it she would always talk about her dog getting hit by a car. I didn’t expect an old children’s’ song to be a way to help a child work out the grief of losing a pet! But it was.
J was a “hunk” and probably saved a couple younger boys from quitting their lessons when they began to think it was sissy stuff and didn’t want to be seen going in or out of the studio. But it worked out that each of the boys at one time or another saw J come in for his lesson, wearing movie-star Western hats, or baseball caps, and knowing that J was a “sports star,” they stopped feeling like sissies. One of these boys, D, after just a few lessons, determined to learn “The Entertainer,” did learn it; partly by ear and partly by rote. Not long after that very large accomplishment, he quit lessons, but he went out on top, and his memories of the experience are good ones.
B was a young girl who made up songs sometimes, and I remember how proud she was of one that she played for me, which she called “Street Cats.” I was honored to play for her wedding, about 14 years later.
I asked A, regarding the recital she was going to play in, “Are you going to smile, curtsey, or bow?” She said, “I won’t smile, because I can’t smile.”
To be continued…
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About the Author: RD Blakeslee (1931 – 2024) built his net worth by only investing in that which can be enjoyed during acquisition and throughout life, as opposed to papers in a drawer, like stocks and bonds. You can read more about him here.
Photos: Courtesy of the Blakeslee Family
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