Tag Archives: Raising young musicians

Character, Goals and Dreams, Music and Theatre, Those who can teach

In a Music Town: The Side-Hustle

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It is more truth than myth, the idea that struggling musicians, actors, and opera aspirants work in a deli while waiting for a big break. It is vintage legend and it is just as true today in any music city as it was 100 years ago. New York, New Orleans, L.A. Durango. Yes, Durango. I heard the tourists talking as I sat at the piano at Jean-Pierre French Bakery during the recent Blue-Grass Meltdown. They were talking about the prolific amount of musical talent in such a small town – especially the pianists. Very true. The Strater Hotel anchors the other end of the same block as Jean-Pierre and boasts two restaurants and one saloon. The Diamond Belle Saloon is historic and famous and houses a grand old upright piano.  During the season – May through October – there is a continuous line-up of ragtime pianists playing every night of the week.   The most famous is Adam Swanson – four-time World Champion Old-Time piano player. Another piano man appearing regularly at the Diamond Belle is Daryl Kuntz. He and his brother have been in the movies. Daryl also plays piano one morning a week at Jean-Pierre. I cover Saturday and Sunday mornings.

For my side-hustle, I administer the private lessons schedule at Stillwater Music.

So I get to meet them, 25 or 30 of these aspiring and practicing professional musicians, as they carry out another traditional side-hustle of musicians – private lesson teacher.

She is a musical theater major, an opera singer headed to graduate school, and she gives voice lessons three days a week to students of all ages, five-year-old Disney princesses to 65-year-old choral singers. She also cleans houses to supplement her living – and walks dogs – and works evenings in a liquor store.

He is a coffee barista who manages one of the many, many hip coffee shops in Durango. He also is an accomplished fingerstyle guitarist who plays, bass, mandolin, and uke. Other musicians refer to him with the nickname Prophet of Jazz. He has not always been in Durango, but he always comes back.

He is a much revered, most veteran of piano teachers; so laid back he could be a bass player. He has toured with his guitar, finished his piano degree as a young adult and married man, and sometimes takes time off to attend his son’s soccer games. His son also plays cello. His daughter; piano. He used to take time off to tour with Chevel Shepherd on keys and guitar. I am not sure whether being a sought after gigging musician and recording studio staple is his side hustle or weather teaching 32 students a week is his side hustle. But either way, he is making a full-time living in music.

She will ride in the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic tomorrow – all the way to Silverton – on a bicycle – racing the train. She only graduated college a year or so ago – with a double major. She has 30 piano students and is dedicated to giving them her best. As a side hustle she accompanies for the local middle school and works mornings at the golf-course. She will leave for graduate school in the fall, but she will keep as many of her students as possible online, because even in graduate school, you’ve got to have a side-hustle.

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In a Music House: the parent talk

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I laugh when I think about it now. She is thirty-four and single but wants to be married with a family. I am double her age and single and have been married and divorced twice. Never-the-less, we are both single, both female, and both roommates out of societal and financial necessity as we wait for the charming prince or, alternately, an apartment to come available in Rivendell.

So it happens that sometimes she brings men home. She meets them at various places – in the wilderness, at WFR training, at church, at the gym. She brings them home for dinner or for a shower between wilderness trips, or in a group of rangers for pizza and party, or to floor surf in sleeping bags somewhere along the journey. And she brings them home to meet me – the sixty-eight-year-old roommate – also her mother.

I’ve heard of those parents – those dads and moms – who have “the talk,” with young men arriving for a first date with their daughters. There is no need for me to be intrusive or meddlesome. I trust her as my roommate. And I have confidence in the wisdom of a 34-year-old daughter. I know her to have a heart motivated by love and a brain guided by wisdom.

But we live in a music house – always have whether with other roommates or as family. She has played in bands and lived with bands. I have played with bands and raised young musicians. Music and musical instruments are fabric and fiber of our lives and figure prominently in design and function of our living arrangements.

There were the two thirty-year-olds she hosted spontaneously after WFR training who were delighted to catch me playing guitar and turned out to be musicians. We enjoyed a fine jam session. There was the handsome and desirable lawyer who stopped by on an errand, saw the two pianos and promptly confessed his lack of musical investment. One item and one alone in the negative column, but huge in a music house. There are the two guys from the gym who haul in their guitars for regular band practice. There is a handful of best friends collected from church and gym who show up on days off and work on original tunes in the garage. She lives here musically. I go away from the house to work as a music administrator four days a week and on Saturday and Sunday mornings I gig as a pianist.

Last week she met someone new online. They corresponded via text. They chatted face to face by phone, mutually liked what they saw, made a hiking and dinner date. Between the hike and meal they showed up at the apartment to freshen up and change clothes. His attention was immediately captured by the musical instruments. I welcomed him to pick up and play anything he liked while she changed. He chose the acoustic guitar. It was a nice, knowledgeable riff. I moved to the keyboard, correctly guessed the key and supported his ramblings. She came from the other room, pulled up the cajon, seated herself and laid the rhythm. He began to sing. His was a pleasant voice. It was an original song. Well now, that’s a huge checkmark in the plus column.

You can text. You can talk. You can exchange bios and opinions online. You can take a hike to support your claims of affection for Nature and your wilderness prowess. You can boast about being a music lover. But beware when you visit a music house and Mom hands you a guitar. The truth about your musical background will surface immediately.

Family, Music and Theatre

In a Music House part 4: Soundtrack for a road trip

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After all, what is a road trip without music? She was the driver so she got to chose the playlist. It was a multi-generational girls trip for spring break and I was not driving. The playlist was not babyboomer – not from the 70s. The playlist was millennial and included a hearty dose of driving drumbeat intros (so far, so good), but also some raspy sounding screamo. 

I sat in the backseat feverishly editing the manuscript for Precious Journey. My (almost) 15-year-old granddaughter occupied the front passenger seat and my daughter of 33 years was driving. The trip was her idea. The music was her music. Suddenly, the timbre of the male voice grabbed my attention. There was something familiar about the vocal placement, even the enunciation of the lyrics. This was a clean professional recording I had not heard before. I thumped the back of the driver’s seat. “Is this Philip?” I called. “Nope,” she answered, “Project 86.”

We rode on. We heard some millennial classics. We listened to soundtracks.  A solid, hard, rock drumbeat laid an extended intro to a song. “This is my favorite band,” quipped my daughter from the driver’s seat. “You really like the drummer?” I queried. “Nope. Crush on the guitar player. This is the last thing they ever recorded.” It was, without question, a professional studio recording – not a rough take. And now I knew; she was the drummer. Three different band incarnations, same three musicians. They met in high school marching band. The first rock band formed in my basement at a homecoming party. They morphed into hardcore rock, then post hardcore. They lived for a time in the same house in Ft. Collins. They have now gone separate ways.

Fire Extinguisher – the first album my oldest son ever produced, toured, recorded, merchandised, released as a cassette and CD and personally presented me a T-shirt for. SMA – good old Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego from out of the past (think 1997) came wafting into my mind as I listened to the male voice, now more mature, judiciously trained, skilled and versatile. The driver turned to her niece. “That’s your dad,” she said. 

Friends, I am not musically illiterate and I am not going deaf. Yet, I could not tell the difference between the national best sellers and billboard names and my own children. When you have lived in a music house for over 60 years yourself, when you have been exposed to recording studios and stages of every genre, when you have spent a good deal of time on study and practice of vocal production, when you work daily in music, you notice things. My children have arrived. Whether the world ever recognizes them – or not – I do. These are children who grew up in a music house.

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Wedding Snapshots: another one got away

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It was a wedding, so of course, there was a photographer – many photographers, actually. Everyone carries a phone camera these days. So there are snapshots and snapchats of the bride and the maid of honor and the flower girl and the ringbearer in his pajamas after the whole ordeal. There is an absolutely lovely candid photo of the bride and groom lifting champagne glasses and smiling, flutes parallel, the cake perfect. There are reverent photos of solemn moments, vows and communion and an impeccably well-dressed wedding couple of a certain age taking second chances. Risking all for love once again. There are photos of well-wishers and dancers at a wedding reception boasting a professional band and a quintessentially catered small-plates buffet. The reception cheffed and catered; it must be added; by the full-grown daughter of a friend of the bride – who also happened to be a former piano student of the wedding musician. Yes. It was a mature wedding, full of the richness of friendship and family and lives well lived regardless of bumps and hurdles thrown in the path. Most of the members of the wedding party were baby boomers – or children of baby boomers – even grandchildren.

She blew through the glass doors of the modern big box church building trailing a garment bag with the requisite black semi-formal wear of a seasoned wedding musician. Rushed, as usual, from one appointment to another. Band instrument load-in at the reception venue at 1:00 p.m. and now spiffy prelude at a church at 2:30 p.m. or whenever she could get changed and gracefully ascend to the piano bench. Zero to sixty in – well, yes, zero to sixty in 67 years with a few hitches along the way. As she could see, wedding guests had begun to arrive. An entire multigenerational family sat perched at a bistro table waiting for the auditorium seating to open.  A 15-year-old 2021 reincarnated version of a child of the 60s was twirling in the irresistible open floor of the atrium. She paid them no mind, but bustled on through the church fellowship kitchen and into an anteroom which she knew to be the dressing room for the women of the party. Women of all ages in all stages of dress lounged and chatted on padded Sunday School chairs while a cosmetologist finished gilding the bride. The musician gained entrance to the small restroom – shared space with the maid of honor – and slipped out of black stage crew gear and into a black performance dress. A designer dress, constructed with quality lines, flattering in fit and drape, and incidentally, with a side zipper. Alas, there was no mirror in the restroom, but she remembered seeing a full-length mirror propped just outside the door. Out she went, sidled up to the mirror and commenced the task of zipping without ripping the skin. From behind a winsome voice asked, “Can I help you, Miss Cherry?” She looked up into the mirror and saw herself encircled by a blond, slender, willowy wisp of a woman. Snap that picture, photographer. It is unforgettable, the two of them framed in the mirror. This is the very student to whom she used to say after hearing the C scale, “And G, and D – and when you grow up you’re going to have twins and name them Angie and Andy.” Now she only said,

“Oh Margie, I’m afraid your nose is having to be in my armpit.” “No problem, Miss Cherry. I’m a kindergarten teacher, I’m always in pits.” Slick as a zipper the wedding musician was dressed and shod and groomed. The former student tucked a flower in long wedding tresses and sent her aging teacher out the door to the waiting keyboard.

And the piano student? Yes, she is a kindergarten teacher – and a teacher of music. She has raised four children. One of them was twirling in the atrium. Another she named “Cadence.” But the portrait -that heartwarming snapshot that got away – lives forever in memory – that and the picture of the accomplished chef leaning in the doorway and reveling in the music of the reception band.

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Wedding Band

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The bride was beautiful, the groom amiable and attentive. She witnessed the solemn ceremony from a piano bench where she had just played a passel of tunes – some popular, some classic. There were tender moments to bring tears and proud moments for sitting up straighter. There was humor and understanding to bring smiles and laughter. And then, there was a reception. A reception with food and fun and cake and dancing and a live band. This time, she sat on a portable bench at an electronic 88-keys, properly positioned to the left and behind the lead guitarist and two vocalists and within eye-contact and the reach of the drummer and bassist – all seven on a postage stamp the size of an area rug.

The bride was beautiful, surrounded by life-long friends and family and having the time of her life. The groom was gregarious and hospitable. And the band? The band was the best she had ever played with. There were times over the past three weeks of preparation when she felt out of her league. But when the drummer gave the count off and the guests of every generation hit the dance floor, cares of life and inhibition left the courtyard. Life was bliss. Even the servers kept smiling. The venue owner and caterer paused in their hurry to film the band. Her heart was full, sitting there on the collapsible bench. And when it was all over and load-out begun, someone pointed out the band included three generations of the same family. True that! She was indeed a grande dame. Her son the drummer / band leader. Her grandson on synthesizer. Don’t quit on your music! You need it every day of your life. 

Goals and Dreams, Health and Long Life, Music and Theatre, Musical resolutions

In a Music House part 3, crashing a party

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We crashed their party, and when I say we, I mean two genXers – both of them dads – and me, the gray-haired baby-boomer. “Let’s go down,” said my 47-year-old son, “And ask if we can jam with them.” He was talking to me, but mostly to a former bandmate who was visiting from out of town. Down we trooped, to the well-appointed basement studio. “Can we set in?” I called, feeling very much like a nuisance neighborhood kid. Now I ask you, how can two sixteen-year-olds, one seated on the throne and the other slapping a bass, refuse the dad who shelled out the lettuce for all the equipment? And how can they refuse grandma? Captain picked up a second bass (Tennille was upstairs chatting with the mom of the graduate). Kvon grabbed the guitar and started setting options on the pedal board. I flipped the switch on the keyboard stack and got…nothing – this is not my studio and the sound man is AWOL. So I moved to the Hammond which was live last time I was here, pulled a few tabs, disengaged some buttons and full-throttled the Leslies. We’ll play in “A” said the captain to the co-bassist. So I did. Played “A” for about ten minutes. Played A 440 on the upper manual and A 440 on the lower manual and A 880 and riffed the notes in between. Eventually, I slide off the bench and drifted away to greet cousins and walk the old homestead. The teenagers switched instruments and cross-trained. But for a moment there, it felt like old times. I’m even saddle-sore from dangling my legs off an organ bench. And what of the graduate, the person who precipitated this event?

He wasn’t manning the keyboards, instead, he was playing video games with his classmates. Are they wasting time? No. Think of it as research. He’ll design something someday, a game that integrates original music and video and creativity and it will be a hit. Because all this is what you do; all this is at your fingertips, when you were raised in a music and media house, with grandparents who were songwriters, engineers, and bandleaders in the 70s and great grands who knew how to raise the roof at gospel camp meetings. 

***

I returned to the music house today after a job interview of sorts. Like most interviews I have been to, this one included a fair amount of listening on my part – listening to the story of another and absorbing the information between the lines and applying it to my life, shaping an opinion and a proposal. Unlike most interviews I have ever been to, this one ended with me sitting on a piano bench playing a medley of popular tunes whilst the retiring piano man wandered off to talk to the restaurant owner. “I told him he should hire you,” he said. “When he asked me why, I said because you guessed the correct amount of money in the tip jar.” He laughed and played a few tunes for me. I thanked him and walked back home, declining a ride in his convertible. After all, it’s only a few blocks and the weekend weather is fine. Walking gives me a chance to soak in the neighborhood ambience and hear various kinds of music wafting out the doors of houses and food establishments. My own house is no exception. When I arrived home live music was filtering through the open screen. Laid back guitar riffs, a bit of funk, nice steady patterns on percussion, perfect for a lazy Saturday afternoon. Andrea sat on the cahon, hand-drumming snare and bass and adding tambourine fills with her foot. My guitar was in the hands of someone obviously more capable than I who was effortlessly picking and strumming. A mandolin and a bass lay in open cases nearby. They’ve gone to do some grocery shopping now, and I just spent another hour at the keyboard improvising old favorite tunes. It’s a fine thing to live in a music house, and an even finer thing to have a musical family.

Four generations worth of musical instruments in this studio
This is the Diamond Belle Saloon where four time Olde Tyme Piano champion, Adam Swanson, plays six nights a week
This is the Jean-Pierre French Bakery where Cherry Odelberg will supplement her retirement by busking for breakfast and brunch on the weekends
Family, Health and Long Life, Home and Hearth, Music and Theatre

In A Music House

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I have been long gone from the music house I grew up in – the house where my dad bought my mother musical instruments and paid for our weekly lessons – but when I visit, Dad will frequently ask for those old hymns. Time was, my mother and I would play duets. Duets happened less and less frequently this past decade as arthritis, knee surgery and the pain of old age exacted a toll on Mom. However, in July of 2018, when I paid a regular visit home and sat down at the well-used piano, Mom surprised us by maneuvering her walker to the vibraharp, picking up the mallets and joining in. Bent and gnarled, she was nearly leaning on the tone plates. After three tunes, she was fatigued – so she sat – on the organ bench – and played a medley. Thankfully, I had presence of mind to whip out my cellphone. Mom didn’t know she was being recorded. Please look past my shoulder and beyond my attempts to accompany by ear and enjoy an 85-year-old woman who didn’t quit on her music – or the old tunes.

Mansion Over the Hilltop

It Is No Secret

When We All Get to Heaven / At the Cross

My youngest son came to visit. This in itself was a grand occasion. I hadn’t seen him in the flesh for 16 months – though we do have the advantage of Duo Video calls and Instagram. We hiked. We ate. We talked. The kids pulled out the mandolin and guitar and I sat on the piano stool and luxuriated.

Andrea Shellabarger, mandolin, Philip Shellabarger, guitar, May 10, 2020
Andrea Shellabarger, mandolin, Philip Shellabarger, guitar, May 10, 2020

Soon I exclaimed, “Oh! It is wonderful to live in a music house!”

My 31-year-old daughter looked at me blankly, “But Mom, we have always lived in a music house.” Now that she mentions it, this is true for her – and for her brother(s). She grew up in a home where the acoustic piano was in use not only for family pleasure, but for the teaching of countless piano students. Frequently, both guitar and piano rehearsed together for the occasional music and worship gig. I taxied them to marching band and chorale rehearsals and performances. And yes, I treasure the memory of the night I sat down at the piano to relax and my pre-teen son crawled under the bench, curled up against the piano, basked in the vibration of the strings. Even when the kids flew the nest and moved out on their own, housing was with other band members – in the rehearsal house. Music was expected. Rehearsal required.

My daughter holds the lease now and I am the roommate in my current domicile for an indefinite period of time. I got the blank look again the other day when I expressed my reticence to embark on vocal exercises with neighbors so close or to play the piano and practice guitar while she reads and writes in the adjoining room.

“Mom,” she remonstrated, “when I lived with the band it was expected you practice your instrument two hours a day in addition to band rehearsals. When everyone plays more than one instrument and practices two hours a day, the projects are going to overlap. Get used to it.”

Sheesh, and I feel like I am encroaching when I woodshed for a few minutes, play piano for an hour, practice guitar 30 minutes and try to wrangle the bass for fifteen.

Yes, my children have always lived in a music house. Their roommates have been fellow band members.

Thank goodness they have never known the poverty of living with roommates who have a television running every waking moment and who, rather than cooperating to schedule times of silence for piano practice, simply turn the volume up to hear the telly over the piano.

It was not like that in the house I grew up in. When I was growing up, many years we didn’t even have a television – and the times we did, it was never allowed on Sunday. Instead of television, we practiced our instruments. And on Sundays, we played hymns.

Family, Goals and Dreams, Music and Theatre

But first, music; This Magic Moment WRF edition

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She was back in town for wilderness first responder recertification and I was playing host – sort of recertifying my position as her mom and mentor. A road trip to get her here. Three days of intense training for her whilst I puttered about the apartment. The first evening I hiked to the top of the Sky Steps to meet her and we took a nature trail home together. The second night I ran up the Sky Steps and texted, “I’m at the chimes. Where are you?” A few minutes later she responded, “Bringing a couple classmates home for dinner. We are shuttling cars.” Oh my goodness, I would have to hurry. The only key was in my pocket. I met the three of them walking up the middle of the road, two blocks from the house. Two beefy outdoorsmen of her generation; one in hiking pants, the other in shorts and man-Uggs, looking pure Australian, but speaking Californian. Both had hair as long as my daughter’s. In fact, one had the exact same braid and hair color as my daughter. These were not the college sophomores of ten years ago, no, these were mature and rugged young men. Used to the out-of-doors, used to putting entire physical prowess and brain into every challenge, used to working with the public, guiding, being responsible.

My daughter served us popcorn as an hors d’oeuvres and then the young people headed out to grocery shop and see the town. The meal boded well to be fresh, cast-iron cooked, healthful – – and late.

I stole those solitary minutes as appropriate to play through a piano set and then moved on to guitar. Halfway through The Gambler the shoppers returned. Calistralia’s eyes lit as he entered and he gave an enthusiastic thumbs-up. I proceeded to Killing Me Softly With His Song. Wonder of wonders, he began to sing words – and harmony. In the kitchen, Andrea had scrubbed the sweet potatoes and started them to bake. Concluding my practice time, I turned to the young man and asked, “Do you play guitar?” “I have,” was his succinct reply. That reply told me volumes. Some reshuffling of dinner preparations occurred. We all pitched in. After that interruption, I stepped into the living room and handed him the guitar. Oh my heart, what beauty now emanated from those six strings. Rather than weep, I turned to the other ranger, “Do you play any instruments?” “I am a fire-dancer,” he said.

I tossed him the Remo Fruit Shakes from our china closet. Andrea picked up her mandolin. I moved to the keyboard. Dinner was almost ready. But first: music.

IMG_4505wfrmusicsmile

 

Emotional Health, Music and Theatre

This Magic Moment

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This magic moment, so different and so new, was like any other….and then it happened, it took me by surprise, I knew that you felt it too, by the look in your eyes…

I love the idea of magic moments. May they increase. May you have many magic moments in time. Go ahead, seek them. Chase the magic. Some are lucky enough to experience a magic moment that does, indeed, spark a lifetime relationship. But in my experience, magic moments are not “forever to the end of time.” They are moments. They burst on you unexpectedly. They sparkle. They blaze. They are gone. You return to your day job. Magic, intrinsically, is temporary.

More often than not, my magic moments are associated with the making of music.

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My MacBook Smells Like Campfire

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My MacBook Pro smells a little like a campfire. Proof positive of a working adventure.

I had resolved not to leave town on a holiday weekend – not even go into town to the office if I could help it. Traffic is brutal in recreation areas during the busy season. There is such a passing frenzy on two-lane highways. Your odds of a head on collision – or rolling your car off-road to avoid one- are extremely high.

I don’t need that kind of stress. Nevertheless, as Memorial Day approached, I realized I would be alone. I am accustomed to parades and car shows, and baseball, and family cookouts on Memorial Day.

Now solitude is one of my comforts, but I also love to laugh. Laughter usually takes two. My family and best friends are in Colorado. My work friends have seen more than enough of me this past week. Besides, holidays for them mean tossing shots and swinging drunk in the backyard. As much as I enjoy a good swing set, drunkenness is not my forte.

As it turned out, instead of shots, I had marshmallows toasted over an open fire, watermelon toted in a cooler, hotdogs roasted on my pocket stove, and great conversation.

I got to see my daughter looking extremely well in borrowed clothes, sporting a river tan on her knees and making lovely music with mandolin and voice. Making mature, well-honed, performance-ready music around a campfire – while I made an office of picnic table, cell-phone and laptop.

After she played through a mini-repertoire of songs ranging from Johnny Cash through Amazing Grace and some cutting edge originals, she obligingly chopped and split our neighbors’ wood tender. They shared their fire. We enjoyed marshmallows, and played games with those three neighbors as the embers died.

We broke camp the next morning and headed back through that persistently impatient traffic to work day worlds. In my workday world I will design and buy merchandise and insist on customer service that insures visitors have a great outdoor experience. In her world, she will fearlessly guide wanderers down river on a raft; or lead strangers into deeper spirituality through her music.

Have I said recently that I raise young musicians? They are all grown up now and each responsible and laudable in his or her own right for musical expertise. I can no longer take credit for their virtuosity. What a joy to know that each of my children travels through life making substantive music; all the while keeping body and shelter viable through creative endeavor.

Don’t quit on your travel – Keep putting one foot in front of the other

Don’t quit on your enjoyment of Nature – Keep loving the great outdoor activities

Don’t quit your day job – You need it to fund the activities you love

And don’t quit on your music!

IMG_0949andreasingingmandolin