This story starts off with Nicholas playing in the Wake County District Honour band which he had auditioned for a while ago and was successful in getting a seat with that saxophone of his.
They started out with a patriotic tune and of course one’s mind had to wander a bit…
I’ll never forget the one night that Dad was playing his guitar, Grandpa was playing his ancient mandolin, and I was playing the flute. It was the one and only time the three of us ever got together for a jam session and goodness knows it was an amazing experience.
We’d roll over to Grandma and Grandpa’s house on Sunday morning to collect them for church and Grandpa would invariably be sitting at his piano (which is now in my living room and along with that mandolin is my most cherished possession!) and belting out hymns with that beautiful voice of his. You’d be hard-pressed to see that he was playing with only nine fingers having lost one accidentally in a turbine at Central Illinois Power in Hutsonville. But that voice…oh, I could listen to him sing for hours and never tire of it. When it came time to select the music for Dad’s service, “The Old Rugged Cross” was the first one and it was a total no-brainer decision as I’d heard Grandpa sing that one more times than I could ever count.
It’d be easier to tell you what instruments Dad didn’t play rather than listing the many ones he did…most of the time he taught himself how to play them. The trumpet and trombone were often his instruments of choice but he’d play whatever was needed by the church orchestra and he did all of the transpositions of the week’s music. He could play by ear or by the music…and most people would never tell the difference!
I’ll have to find the picture of me holding a very young Nicholas as Dad and I are playing at his piano in Port Orange…I know we had the fourth member of the quartet watching from above and enjoying the show.
It’s been a joy watching Nicholas and Katie excelling in music far more than I ever did (I don’t sight-read when I play…I play exclusively by ear). In fact, right now they’re having fun challenging each other to play the other one’s music for their band classes at school…and that happy competition is certainly music to my ears!
But more than that, I know that Dad and Grandpa’s legacy of music talent is well and truly in good hands in this next generation! Nicholas has found his way to the tenor saxophone (after clarinet, bass clarinet, and alto sax) and Katie humoured me with a year on flute before switching to her true love…the trumpet. And you can just imagine how proud Dad was when we rang him up with that bit of news… 🙂