TromboneChat

To any mom’s on here, it’s Mother’s Day in Canada so here’s a wish for a good day to you!

For the non-moms here, how did your mother affect or influence your musical growth?

When I think of it, I owe a lot to my own mother. She was never without a song in her head and entertained herself with almost constant humming or singing. Her repertoire skewed towards Anglican hymns but she was in tune and lyrical.

She also got me into the church youth choir when I was 5 or 6 years old. That made me see myself as a musical instrument and gave me the confidence to perform as it developed my ear. That, along with some excellent early music teachers in school. Anyone else have memories of being accompanied by an autoharp?

I have a brother who is 10 years older than me.
My mother tried to send him to music school when he was 6 years old but he never went. The lessons were prepaid so she went instead of him. She now plays bass clarinet.
10 years later she tried the same thing with me, but I contrarily to my brother, I went.

My mother taught my sister who is 1 year younger than me, and myself the basics of music theory and notation before we started school and continued for some years after.

She was an accomplished pianist and taught us piano as well.

Unfortunately learning the piano involved doing piano exams which terrified me as a child. I was 7 or 8 when I did my first exam and didn't do very well.

The examiner was Miriam Hyde, the Australian composer, recitalist, teacher, examiner and lecturer.

She contacted my mother some time after our exam and asked if she could come to our house and give a private lesson which my mother agreed to. She came and spent an afternoon with my mother, my sister and I.

I guess she talked with my mother about teaching. I recall that she got my sister and I to play our pieces for her. I just remember that she was a kind grandmotherly lady.

By the time I was in my teens, my mother's health had deteriorated and she didn't play the piano any more.

When my mother was a little girl her family got a piano and she and her sisters began taking piano lessons.

A few weeks later they came home from school one day to find the piano out in front of the house on the sidewalk with the trash. Her dad said he couldn't stand listening to them practice. That was the end of the piano lessons.

Years later at about age 60 she began taking piano lessons at the community college and worked very intently at that for the next ten years.

My mother c. 1940

Such sweet stories. I love how some mothers get into music with or after their kids.

Anyone have a mom who is why they are in music or made it possible?

When I started even the $20 a month my teacher was giving lessons away for was a tough scrape for my mom, but she made it happen.

My mother, an immigrant from Italy, loved opera and took singing lessons from the San Francisco Opera chorus master. She also played the piano pretty well. My father was not musical, but loved to listen, so he crafted a "hi-fi" sound system (fabricating the speakers in our garage "shop"). So I was surrounded by music growing up - it was a constant presence. I took piano lessons, and was doing well, but - as young boys will do - I decided to stop. (I still haven't forgiven my mother for allowing me to quit!) I started trumpet in 5th grade but she also had me stop in fear that it was aggravating my severe asthma. By 7th grade my asthma was better, and I joined the school's "beginning band" - but the director "determined" that I would be better on trombone than trumpet. He was right! The rest is history. I loved the trombone, and it showed in my playing. My mother became my biggest fan, arranged lessons from an excellent teacher, attended every concert, and encouraged me at every step of the way. Even after a 30-year hiatus, now that I've resumed playing, I still often think of her when I pick up my trombone. Thanks, Mom!

VJOFan wrote: ↑Mon May 12, 2025 12:14 pm Such sweet stories. I love how some mothers get into music with or after their kids.

Anyone have a mom who is why they are in music or made it possible?

Yeah, me, in a roundabout way.

When I was 8, my father’s boss had a kid named Matt, who was a few years older than me. Matt played tuba in a youth band. Youth bands were like community bands for kids. This youth band was putting on a concert. My dad’s boss made my dad buy two tickets to hear his kid, Matt, play. (Matt eventually grew up to be Matthew Garbutt, tubist and conductor of the San Diego Symphony Orchestra.) When my father got home and presented these tickets to my mother, mom flat-out refused to go to a stupid kids’ concert. My dad said he kind of had to go, as his boss expected it. Mom steadfastly refused to go to a youth band concert (which she said very derisively), and she told my dad to take me to the concert, instead. And he did.

At the concert, I was floored. My 8-year old jaw was on the ground the whole concert. I didn’t know this kind of thing was possible. It was an amazing and transformative experience. The moment the concert was over I knew immediately that I wanted to do that, too, and I started bugging my parents about it. They looked into it.

The band was called the San Fernando Valley Youth Band. I couldn’t get into that band until I was 12 years old. That was forever away! I was crushed.

But they had a junior band called the Claudhoppers, after Claude Lakey, the owner of the band and the music store where the band rehearsed. The problem was, I couldn’t even get into the Claudhoppers until I was 10 years old, so I had to wait TWO YEARS! It seemed so unfair. I wanted to play in the band right now, despite the fact that I didn’t even play an instrument at that point.

Around that same time my elementary school recruited kids for the school orchestra. I went to apply so I could get into the Claudhoppers, but I was late. They said they had two instruments left. I could play the string bass, or I could play the trombone (both offered to me because I was tall). I wanted to play the bass, and I asked if I could play string bass in the Claudhoppers Youth Band. They said that I could not. There were no basses in the band. So, trombone it was, because all that mattered to me was becoming a Claudhopper.

And that’s how I wound up a trombone player.

The school gave me a trombone to take home. I eagerly got it out of the case and tried to figure out how to put it together. When I got it together (incorrectly), I tried to make a sound on the horn. I blew through it until my eyes bugged out, but no sounds came except the woosh! of air through the horn. A neighbor girl who was doing this with me then took the horn and got a sound out of it after a couple tries. “How did you do that? Tell me!” I implored. She refused and played coy, but I became increasingly insistent until she finally relented and told me she had buzzed her lips into the mouthpiece. Oh! I tried that, and it worked!

So I went to C&D Music, where the bands rehearsed, and I started private lessons with Ed Loe, a trumpet teacher. They didn’t have a trombone teacher. I practiced for two years and when I was finally 10 years old, I auditioned for the Claudhoppers and made it in. Success!

All thanks to my mother being a huge bitch to my dad and flat-out refusing to attend a concert for my dad's boss' son, even though my dad begged her.

Thanks, mom! Hope you're rotting in Hell somewhere, but I'm glad you refused to go!

tbdana wrote: ↑Mon May 12, 2025 12:46 pm All thanks to my mother being a huge bitch to my dad and flat-out refusing to attend a concert for my dad's boss' son, even though my dad begged her.

Thanks, mom! Hope you're rotting in Hell somewhere, but I'm glad you refused to go!

Now even motherhood issues are fraught?

I’m taking that this is at least a little light hearted on your part.

Once my folks had passed I just ended up focussing on the good they did for me. Sorry to anyone who gets down or angry because of this thread. Parents are definitely, at least, a double edged sword.