I don't know if at the end of this post, my thoughts will be coherent, because I'm recording them as I think about them. Let's get on this ride together and see where it goes.
This past Sunday, with John gone to Pennsylvania, I didn't have much to do by myself. I mean, I had already done hours and hours of genealogy. So, I thought that I would attend a Berlioz/Paganini concert by the Detroit Symphony, but I was low on gas, and I didn't like the idea of making people work on the Sabbath for my own pleasure. My thoughts then went to the free concerts that the students and faculty put on all day, every day at the School of Music. As a teenager, these were a staple for me (and the reason that I know how to somewhat get around the school), and I kind of love them. You just never know what you're going to get because each and every instrument and program is represented at some point.
There was a traditional violin recital happening at 5 p.m. (by an Asian violinist no less, so I knew it would be technically spectacular), but there was also a "Michigan Chamber Players" concert happening at 4 p.m. The description said that it would be a concert involving different venues over the course of two hours, and that there would be different music presented (from Bach to some super modern composers). All I had to see was the Concerto for Four Keyboards by Bach to be sold on the performance.
One of the things that I think a lot of instrumentalists don't think about is that being any kind of keyboardist is a pretty lonely position. Organists can play for church services and pianists can play for other instrumentalists and vocalists, but we spend 99% of our rehearsal time alone. So having the opportunity to see FOUR keyboards on a stage, playing together is pretty rare, and as I discovered fantastic.
As a side note, the concert pianist (and professor at Florida State), Margaret Meisse, that my grandmother introduced me to at the tender age of six (and set up lessons) owned three grand pianos. She had one piano that was the "student" piano where her younger students took lessons, a second grand piano that was used by the older, more mature students, and her piano that only she touched. She built a huge vaulted room with wood flooring on the front of her Tallahassee home to house the three pianos. The opposite side walls were complete glass, looking out onto fenced gardens on either side, and there were koi ponds in both gardens connected by a stream that ran underneath the room. I can see it like I was there yesterday, and she used those three pianos to great acclaim when she had recitals, setting up all kinds of duets and trios.
But her set-up is definitely the exception to the rule.
So the idea of seeing four keyboards on a stage at once just about blows my mind (and don't you know that I wish I could be part of it all). I thankfully got there about 20 minutes early, because by the time the performance started, the entire recital hall was full (which I have NEVER seen before). This is what I saw on stage:
The front keyboard is a straight-out harpsichord, and as we had a full-view of the professor playing it, I was reminded of the harpsichord lessons I took in college where I learned that as a harpsichordist, you don't use your thumbs BECAUSE HE DIDN'T USE HIS THUMBS! It was amazing to see him playing scales and chords and tripping all over the keys without his thumbs.
The keyboard on the left is a piano forte, something that was just coming into vogue at the end of Bach's time. The keyboard on the right is a harpsichord, but it's strung with gut strings which gave it a subdued but unique sound. It's technically called a Lautenwerk, or a lute harpsichord.
The keyboard in the back is an organ. Yes, an actual organ. It had a cord which plugged into the wall, but otherwise, I have no idea if the sound just came from the console or somewhere else. The organist STOOD to play it though.
I must admit that I didn't know how a concerto was going to work when the keyboards are usually the orchestral reduction, and there obviously wasn't room for an orchestra on stage. Low and behold, the brilliance behind a string quartet coming out and standing in the middle of the keyboards, covering the orchestra parts. And with such a small venue, it totally worked.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
At the beginning of the program, the man in charge of this chamber group came out on stage (in an untucked flannel shirt and corduroys *cue eye roll at the Ann Arbor liberals*) along with an older white woman (more about the racist sensitivity in a moment) in a black dress. Turns out, she had been the mastermind behind this "traveling" concert, and not knowing what was ahead, I didn't actually understand most of what she was referencing (note to everyone: smart, self-important Ann Arbor musicians LOVE to hear themselves talk). She mentioned something about dance, and us moving.
They then exited the stage, and the keyboardists came on. In a stroke of brilliance, someone had decided that they would all wear different gemstone-colored shirts for the performance which worked for both the three men AND the older woman. And the strings? In all black. It was perfect.
The three movements went way too fast. I can't recognize the differences in timbre between the harpsichord, the lautenwerk, and the piano forte, so I would think I was looking at the correct performer, only to see their hands resting in their laps. Seriously, I just couldn't process it all fast enough, especially since my eyes and ears kept naturally going to the string players who are normally the soloists/chamber ensemble. And golly, their hands and fingers were MOVING, and I didn't hear one mistake. Ugh, to be that good....
If you're interested in actually listening to it (and it's so short that there's no reason for you not to), it's Concerto for Four Keyboards in a minor, BWV 1065 by Johann Sebastian Bach.
Next on the program was Première Rhapsodie pour orchestre avec clarinette principale by Claude Debussy. I don't even know how I got so lucky. Both Bach and Debussy are at the top of my composer list AND performing list. The black-dressed woman had mentioned something about the "h" in the word Rhapsodie, and I remembered something about dance, but beyond that, I thought I was just in for ten minutes of really great music. So the four keyboards were pushed to the back, and the fabulous, humongous, Steinway grand was brought out.
Well, as it turns out, the black-dressed woman is a piano professor at the school. Why do I mention that she's white? Because I don't see many freaking white people who can churn out the hard piano parts like the Asians, and she was probably 55 years old and didn't wear glasses yet. Yep, she sat down at the piano to play with the clarinetist, not as an accompanist but as the second performer in the ensemble. I wondered why the clarinetist was tucked into the armpit of the piano, but the fact that he sat down without any music distracted me. Well as soon as they both started, directly to my left, coming down the aisle (where I was sitting) was a DANCER! She was a 5 foot, Asian girl wearing a pale pink dress (tank top on the top with a full, heavy, short skirt on the bottom), nude legs and pink ballet shoes. And she spent the entire ten minutes or so, moving beautifully around the stage and in front of the stage and up and down the aisles with choreographed movements to the music. It was simply divine, and once again, it wasn't long enough. I didn't know where to look, and I didn't know if the music or the dance was more important. Turns out, in Debussy's time, when people would perform in salons and other intimate spaces, the music was frequently combined with dance. It was such a perfect combination--I was left speechless.
Then, the next thing on the "menu" was Rapsodie (version pour saxophone alto, saxophone soprano et piano), also by Debussy. Now let me tell you--anytime any Kennedy sees anything with the word "saxophone" in it, we run away while regurgitating our lunch. We HATE saxophone, and to take it further, we always know EXACTLY what kind of a person a person is when they mention that they play saxophone. So I rolled my eyes as the two saxophonists came on stage (again with the white pianist), but let me tell you, I was transported. I mean seriously, if anyone is going to make saxophones sound okay, I guess it's Debussy. Again, I didn't know if I should put my head down and listen with my ears (what I usually do so I'm not distracted by anything but the sound), or if should look up to appreciate the excellent coordination between the saxophonists and the pianist. And to her credit, she was playing some trippy hard music, but she was so confident with it that she could look at both of them for extended periods of time to "make sweet, sweet music together" :-)
(And I'm now realizing that I had a LOT more feelings about this performance than I thought. Sorry about that.)
I could have called it a day after that, but there were still two more venues with performances (don't worry--I'll keep my review of just ONE of them short.). We could either head to the pipe organ that is housed two stories underneath the School of Music, or we could head to a music "lab". Yeah, call me old-fashioned, but I had no interest in music created in a lab. Plus, I have tender memories of the organ.
I spent a lot of my childhood entertaining myself. Because neither of my parents stayed home, I
ended up waiting around A LOT for them to pick me up from anything. Before I could drive, I would wait for someone to pick me up from my piano lessons as a teenager at the School of Music. And while waiting, I would wander around. It didn't take me long to discover the Blanche Anderson Moore Hall which, like I said, is underneath the School of Music. The room is built specifically for the pipe organ, and it reminds me of a baptismal font. Because there can't be the natural acoustics of a vaulted ceiling in a cathedral, everything in the room reverberates the sound (or in other words, there's nothing soft on the walls or floors). It's quite brilliant. I liked it as a kid when some organ student would be practicing, and I could sneak in the back of the room and just listen.
I'll admit. The organ professor (who happened to be black and African which made me wonder if he had gotten the appointment as an affirmative action, or a push for diversity) made some mistakes. I mean, if I can hear them, they must be pretty bad, and furthermore, the weekly organ recitals I used to attend at Interlochen would put this guy's performance to shame. However, it was wonderful to actually attend a real-life performance in there.
Okay. Concert notes over.
That night, again feeling rather bored, I FaceTimed Ethan, and Rebecca answered, sitting in the back of the car with the babies. I don't know how it happened, but Baby started talking to me about Peter and the Wolf. Having my own memories of listening to that story, I had encouraged Ethan to listen to some different music with Baby, but he basically told me that he didn't have time. However, Rebecca reached out to me and told me that if I would give her a list of music, she would do her best to have Baby listen to it. Besides Winter, I encouraged her to listen to Peter and the Wolf. Well, as it turns out, Baby loves Peter, so I sent her a book that told the story as well. And in the beautiful fashion of a precocious child, she has begun to understand "instruments" and can identify their timbre, and she finds the story fascinating. So there she was, driving home from Grandma's, and we could have a ten minute conversation about Peter and the Wolf. It was probably THE most beautiful moment I've had with Baby so far.
Along with this, Baby has started Suzuki violin lessons, and she is soaking up the experience like a sponge. As is Brother ;-) And Rebecca is taking on the mantel of a Suzuki mom, practicing twice a day when Baby wants to. I'm glad that I offered to pay for her lessons so that we can all share in this experience together.
So the next day, Ethan called me, and we began talking about Baby and music. And within a minute or two, we were fighting. It's too long and inconsequential to go through it all, but Ethan basically felt that I was being too pushy, or he feared that I would become too pushy, and that I see this as a competition between Linda and me, and that if Baby drops out "in six years, you'll get mad". I don't remember many fights in my life, but I have a feeling that I won't forget this one anytime soon.
Here's my thought on it all. The most beautiful way I connected with all my children was through music. That connection even trumps the gospel. Helping them practice, rehearse, compete and attending performances and driving them to lessons and living with them at Interlochen will stand out as the most difficult and yet most rewarding part of my own journey as a parent. We all learned so much from it, and even now, those memories and those experiences connect us.
I don't connect very well with small children. I'm not a huge baby lover. I'm not sweet and I don't allow my grandchildren to do whatever they want simply because I'm their grandparent. (John, on the other hand, has them wrapped around his little finger.) So finding a connection with Baby has been priceless for me. As I said to Ethan, there are two things that I'm pretty dang good at: music, and parenting. And third on the list is teaching. Having a conversation with Baby on the phone about Peter and the Wolf was emotional, and exciting, and drew us closer together. So to have Ethan throw that in my face was pretty disheartening.
So today, Mark sent out a FB Message that he had received from his high school band director, Mr. Victor. This is what it said:
Now I will say this. We had a .../hate relationship with Mr. Victor ;-) For some reason, he wasn't a big fan of Mark, and I imagine it's because Mark didn't play the game. However, Mark brought home the first place finishes from all of his festivals, so it's not like Mr. Victor could ignore him. Well as it turns out, it WAS Mark playing the horn (you can see him in the halved photo). He responded to Mr. Victor, and Mark sent me the link to listen to the performance.
I was in the car at the time, I didn't get more than five seconds into the piece before huge tears started running down my face. In fact, I had to turn it off almost immediately. I was on my way to meeting John at Outback, and when I walked in, he asked me what was wrong, and I could hardly tell him without the waterworks starting up again.
Words can't really describe how difficult it is for me that most of my children have given up music entirely. Mark hasn't pulled out his horn basically since he left Michigan, and Hannah hasn't played her viola since she got back from her mission (years in both instances). They don't volunteer for musical performances at church, and they don't even play with community orchestras. In fact, both of them have left the musician life for lives that I can't really connect with them on--science, and business. And they are into comic books that I don't read, and Dungeons & Dragons which I don't play. In other words, they have become very different people.
So the idea of being able to talk to Baby about Peter and the Wolf makes me feel like I'm relevant again. Like I have a reason to be part of the family, and that I have a physical way I can support her over the coming years, whether it's by paying for her lessons, or attending her recitals, or having her play the Twinkle variations with Glo. It gives me some of that wonderful connectivity that I had with my own children during some of the most precious moments of my motherhood. But to hear Ethan take me down for what I am doing--pushing, teaching, talking--is extremely difficult. It's almost like saying that he doesn't want me to connect with his children.
So in that five seconds of hearing Mark play "Sleep" with the Michigan Symphony Band, all those feelings came out. Missing those times with my own children, seeing that two of my grown children don't choose music and wondering how we will continue to develop our relationships with each other without it, and knowing that I may not have a way to connect with my grandchildren. I am music, and music is me. It's not something that I choose to do occasionally. It is everything to me. It brings me joy, it fills me with emotion, it stretches my brain, and it allows me to connect with others. I guess I'm thankful that I'm making some musical connections in my community so that it doesn't feel like a total loss, but back to that original thought about being a keyboardist--it is indeed a lonely life.
This past Sunday, with John gone to Pennsylvania, I didn't have much to do by myself. I mean, I had already done hours and hours of genealogy. So, I thought that I would attend a Berlioz/Paganini concert by the Detroit Symphony, but I was low on gas, and I didn't like the idea of making people work on the Sabbath for my own pleasure. My thoughts then went to the free concerts that the students and faculty put on all day, every day at the School of Music. As a teenager, these were a staple for me (and the reason that I know how to somewhat get around the school), and I kind of love them. You just never know what you're going to get because each and every instrument and program is represented at some point.
There was a traditional violin recital happening at 5 p.m. (by an Asian violinist no less, so I knew it would be technically spectacular), but there was also a "Michigan Chamber Players" concert happening at 4 p.m. The description said that it would be a concert involving different venues over the course of two hours, and that there would be different music presented (from Bach to some super modern composers). All I had to see was the Concerto for Four Keyboards by Bach to be sold on the performance.
One of the things that I think a lot of instrumentalists don't think about is that being any kind of keyboardist is a pretty lonely position. Organists can play for church services and pianists can play for other instrumentalists and vocalists, but we spend 99% of our rehearsal time alone. So having the opportunity to see FOUR keyboards on a stage, playing together is pretty rare, and as I discovered fantastic.
As a side note, the concert pianist (and professor at Florida State), Margaret Meisse, that my grandmother introduced me to at the tender age of six (and set up lessons) owned three grand pianos. She had one piano that was the "student" piano where her younger students took lessons, a second grand piano that was used by the older, more mature students, and her piano that only she touched. She built a huge vaulted room with wood flooring on the front of her Tallahassee home to house the three pianos. The opposite side walls were complete glass, looking out onto fenced gardens on either side, and there were koi ponds in both gardens connected by a stream that ran underneath the room. I can see it like I was there yesterday, and she used those three pianos to great acclaim when she had recitals, setting up all kinds of duets and trios.
But her set-up is definitely the exception to the rule.
So the idea of seeing four keyboards on a stage at once just about blows my mind (and don't you know that I wish I could be part of it all). I thankfully got there about 20 minutes early, because by the time the performance started, the entire recital hall was full (which I have NEVER seen before). This is what I saw on stage:
The keyboard on the left is a piano forte, something that was just coming into vogue at the end of Bach's time. The keyboard on the right is a harpsichord, but it's strung with gut strings which gave it a subdued but unique sound. It's technically called a Lautenwerk, or a lute harpsichord.
The keyboard in the back is an organ. Yes, an actual organ. It had a cord which plugged into the wall, but otherwise, I have no idea if the sound just came from the console or somewhere else. The organist STOOD to play it though.
I must admit that I didn't know how a concerto was going to work when the keyboards are usually the orchestral reduction, and there obviously wasn't room for an orchestra on stage. Low and behold, the brilliance behind a string quartet coming out and standing in the middle of the keyboards, covering the orchestra parts. And with such a small venue, it totally worked.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
At the beginning of the program, the man in charge of this chamber group came out on stage (in an untucked flannel shirt and corduroys *cue eye roll at the Ann Arbor liberals*) along with an older white woman (more about the racist sensitivity in a moment) in a black dress. Turns out, she had been the mastermind behind this "traveling" concert, and not knowing what was ahead, I didn't actually understand most of what she was referencing (note to everyone: smart, self-important Ann Arbor musicians LOVE to hear themselves talk). She mentioned something about dance, and us moving.
They then exited the stage, and the keyboardists came on. In a stroke of brilliance, someone had decided that they would all wear different gemstone-colored shirts for the performance which worked for both the three men AND the older woman. And the strings? In all black. It was perfect.
The three movements went way too fast. I can't recognize the differences in timbre between the harpsichord, the lautenwerk, and the piano forte, so I would think I was looking at the correct performer, only to see their hands resting in their laps. Seriously, I just couldn't process it all fast enough, especially since my eyes and ears kept naturally going to the string players who are normally the soloists/chamber ensemble. And golly, their hands and fingers were MOVING, and I didn't hear one mistake. Ugh, to be that good....
If you're interested in actually listening to it (and it's so short that there's no reason for you not to), it's Concerto for Four Keyboards in a minor, BWV 1065 by Johann Sebastian Bach.
Next on the program was Première Rhapsodie pour orchestre avec clarinette principale by Claude Debussy. I don't even know how I got so lucky. Both Bach and Debussy are at the top of my composer list AND performing list. The black-dressed woman had mentioned something about the "h" in the word Rhapsodie, and I remembered something about dance, but beyond that, I thought I was just in for ten minutes of really great music. So the four keyboards were pushed to the back, and the fabulous, humongous, Steinway grand was brought out.
Well, as it turns out, the black-dressed woman is a piano professor at the school. Why do I mention that she's white? Because I don't see many freaking white people who can churn out the hard piano parts like the Asians, and she was probably 55 years old and didn't wear glasses yet. Yep, she sat down at the piano to play with the clarinetist, not as an accompanist but as the second performer in the ensemble. I wondered why the clarinetist was tucked into the armpit of the piano, but the fact that he sat down without any music distracted me. Well as soon as they both started, directly to my left, coming down the aisle (where I was sitting) was a DANCER! She was a 5 foot, Asian girl wearing a pale pink dress (tank top on the top with a full, heavy, short skirt on the bottom), nude legs and pink ballet shoes. And she spent the entire ten minutes or so, moving beautifully around the stage and in front of the stage and up and down the aisles with choreographed movements to the music. It was simply divine, and once again, it wasn't long enough. I didn't know where to look, and I didn't know if the music or the dance was more important. Turns out, in Debussy's time, when people would perform in salons and other intimate spaces, the music was frequently combined with dance. It was such a perfect combination--I was left speechless.
Then, the next thing on the "menu" was Rapsodie (version pour saxophone alto, saxophone soprano et piano), also by Debussy. Now let me tell you--anytime any Kennedy sees anything with the word "saxophone" in it, we run away while regurgitating our lunch. We HATE saxophone, and to take it further, we always know EXACTLY what kind of a person a person is when they mention that they play saxophone. So I rolled my eyes as the two saxophonists came on stage (again with the white pianist), but let me tell you, I was transported. I mean seriously, if anyone is going to make saxophones sound okay, I guess it's Debussy. Again, I didn't know if I should put my head down and listen with my ears (what I usually do so I'm not distracted by anything but the sound), or if should look up to appreciate the excellent coordination between the saxophonists and the pianist. And to her credit, she was playing some trippy hard music, but she was so confident with it that she could look at both of them for extended periods of time to "make sweet, sweet music together" :-)
(And I'm now realizing that I had a LOT more feelings about this performance than I thought. Sorry about that.)
I could have called it a day after that, but there were still two more venues with performances (don't worry--I'll keep my review of just ONE of them short.). We could either head to the pipe organ that is housed two stories underneath the School of Music, or we could head to a music "lab". Yeah, call me old-fashioned, but I had no interest in music created in a lab. Plus, I have tender memories of the organ.
ended up waiting around A LOT for them to pick me up from anything. Before I could drive, I would wait for someone to pick me up from my piano lessons as a teenager at the School of Music. And while waiting, I would wander around. It didn't take me long to discover the Blanche Anderson Moore Hall which, like I said, is underneath the School of Music. The room is built specifically for the pipe organ, and it reminds me of a baptismal font. Because there can't be the natural acoustics of a vaulted ceiling in a cathedral, everything in the room reverberates the sound (or in other words, there's nothing soft on the walls or floors). It's quite brilliant. I liked it as a kid when some organ student would be practicing, and I could sneak in the back of the room and just listen.
I'll admit. The organ professor (who happened to be black and African which made me wonder if he had gotten the appointment as an affirmative action, or a push for diversity) made some mistakes. I mean, if I can hear them, they must be pretty bad, and furthermore, the weekly organ recitals I used to attend at Interlochen would put this guy's performance to shame. However, it was wonderful to actually attend a real-life performance in there.
Okay. Concert notes over.
That night, again feeling rather bored, I FaceTimed Ethan, and Rebecca answered, sitting in the back of the car with the babies. I don't know how it happened, but Baby started talking to me about Peter and the Wolf. Having my own memories of listening to that story, I had encouraged Ethan to listen to some different music with Baby, but he basically told me that he didn't have time. However, Rebecca reached out to me and told me that if I would give her a list of music, she would do her best to have Baby listen to it. Besides Winter, I encouraged her to listen to Peter and the Wolf. Well, as it turns out, Baby loves Peter, so I sent her a book that told the story as well. And in the beautiful fashion of a precocious child, she has begun to understand "instruments" and can identify their timbre, and she finds the story fascinating. So there she was, driving home from Grandma's, and we could have a ten minute conversation about Peter and the Wolf. It was probably THE most beautiful moment I've had with Baby so far.
Along with this, Baby has started Suzuki violin lessons, and she is soaking up the experience like a sponge. As is Brother ;-) And Rebecca is taking on the mantel of a Suzuki mom, practicing twice a day when Baby wants to. I'm glad that I offered to pay for her lessons so that we can all share in this experience together.
So the next day, Ethan called me, and we began talking about Baby and music. And within a minute or two, we were fighting. It's too long and inconsequential to go through it all, but Ethan basically felt that I was being too pushy, or he feared that I would become too pushy, and that I see this as a competition between Linda and me, and that if Baby drops out "in six years, you'll get mad". I don't remember many fights in my life, but I have a feeling that I won't forget this one anytime soon.
Here's my thought on it all. The most beautiful way I connected with all my children was through music. That connection even trumps the gospel. Helping them practice, rehearse, compete and attending performances and driving them to lessons and living with them at Interlochen will stand out as the most difficult and yet most rewarding part of my own journey as a parent. We all learned so much from it, and even now, those memories and those experiences connect us.
I don't connect very well with small children. I'm not a huge baby lover. I'm not sweet and I don't allow my grandchildren to do whatever they want simply because I'm their grandparent. (John, on the other hand, has them wrapped around his little finger.) So finding a connection with Baby has been priceless for me. As I said to Ethan, there are two things that I'm pretty dang good at: music, and parenting. And third on the list is teaching. Having a conversation with Baby on the phone about Peter and the Wolf was emotional, and exciting, and drew us closer together. So to have Ethan throw that in my face was pretty disheartening.
So today, Mark sent out a FB Message that he had received from his high school band director, Mr. Victor. This is what it said:
Now I will say this. We had a .../hate relationship with Mr. Victor ;-) For some reason, he wasn't a big fan of Mark, and I imagine it's because Mark didn't play the game. However, Mark brought home the first place finishes from all of his festivals, so it's not like Mr. Victor could ignore him. Well as it turns out, it WAS Mark playing the horn (you can see him in the halved photo). He responded to Mr. Victor, and Mark sent me the link to listen to the performance.
I was in the car at the time, I didn't get more than five seconds into the piece before huge tears started running down my face. In fact, I had to turn it off almost immediately. I was on my way to meeting John at Outback, and when I walked in, he asked me what was wrong, and I could hardly tell him without the waterworks starting up again.
Words can't really describe how difficult it is for me that most of my children have given up music entirely. Mark hasn't pulled out his horn basically since he left Michigan, and Hannah hasn't played her viola since she got back from her mission (years in both instances). They don't volunteer for musical performances at church, and they don't even play with community orchestras. In fact, both of them have left the musician life for lives that I can't really connect with them on--science, and business. And they are into comic books that I don't read, and Dungeons & Dragons which I don't play. In other words, they have become very different people.
So the idea of being able to talk to Baby about Peter and the Wolf makes me feel like I'm relevant again. Like I have a reason to be part of the family, and that I have a physical way I can support her over the coming years, whether it's by paying for her lessons, or attending her recitals, or having her play the Twinkle variations with Glo. It gives me some of that wonderful connectivity that I had with my own children during some of the most precious moments of my motherhood. But to hear Ethan take me down for what I am doing--pushing, teaching, talking--is extremely difficult. It's almost like saying that he doesn't want me to connect with his children.
So in that five seconds of hearing Mark play "Sleep" with the Michigan Symphony Band, all those feelings came out. Missing those times with my own children, seeing that two of my grown children don't choose music and wondering how we will continue to develop our relationships with each other without it, and knowing that I may not have a way to connect with my grandchildren. I am music, and music is me. It's not something that I choose to do occasionally. It is everything to me. It brings me joy, it fills me with emotion, it stretches my brain, and it allows me to connect with others. I guess I'm thankful that I'm making some musical connections in my community so that it doesn't feel like a total loss, but back to that original thought about being a keyboardist--it is indeed a lonely life.
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