Below in red type is the third of three installments about my childhood beginnings in music. If you want to read parts ONE  and TWO, click on them. Or you can skip down to the black type to my regular diary.

Part Three (of three): Why on earth did I pick out the snare drum to play in the school band?  I did enjoy playing the percussion in all forms and genres all the way through college, before finally focusing completely on composing. That included the marimba, vibraphone, and timpani, where you had to read pitches. No one noticed I was also still tinkering secretly at the piano and writing down original music at home, too, because it had already begun to play continually in my head until I got it out by writing it down. It got me in trouble in high school when I was composing during Trigonometry class instead of paying attention. “Miss” Yates, surely in her late 70’s, had dated Albert Einstein when she was young but never married. That’s all I remember of her.

I begged my mom to let me take piano lessons from another ancient lady down the street, a most glamorous and crazy octogenarian whose entrance to her piano studio for each lesson, to me, bore a strong resemblance in every respect to Gloria Swanson in her famous final scene of Sunset Boulevard. She was a great Romantic and recognized my passion for classical music. So, she had me leap-frogging to Chopin preludes before I was probably ready. I loved it but still did my practicing when no one else was home. It was earlier than that, though – from the time of the harmonica and Penny Lane (see parts one and two) – that I already knew and never again wondered what I would do when I grew up, as most kids wonder. Nor did I ever once waver in high school or college to even consider being anything other than some kind of composer.

In high school, I took a music theory class and began to compose original music for the school ensembles. The first of my pieces ever to be publicly performed, at 16, was by our big high-school concert band with all its instruments. It was a Sousa-style novelty march called Ants on Parade. I used the piccolos with xylophone to sound like marching ants, and I played the xylophone part myself. The ending had a big build up, only to be resolved by a lone piccolo tweeting out the home note, decorated with a grace note, like one little ant who had got lost, which made everyone laugh. I knew at that moment that my musical joke had worked and that I could move an audience with music, and it was off to the races. Thus ends my childhood saga. The rest of this diary, as always, pertains only to my second childhood, which I am currently enjoying.

I begin this diary entry with a bang – a literal bang! Kerpow! Crystal and I were driving on the highway this past Sunday in her car, whose “car name” (we name our cars) is Bernadette – Bernadette Subaru. I think a truck up ahead released a very large stone, more or less round and somewhere in size between a softball and a soccer ball. I watched helplessly as it bounced directly back to our car and under our front passenger tire and blew it out with a loud explosion, breaking the wheel as well as the tire. I got out on the shoulder of the highway and put on the spare tire, and we went back home slowly (these spares today are horrible little donuts) and got into our other car to go where we were going. I had to spend the next couple of days dealing with it and pay a big bill for the repairs, but I’m thankful that it was only boom and not doom for us. 

Last week on Monday evening, Crystal and I dressed up and ventured forth from the Hilltop to celebrate our 13^th wedding anniversary at downtown Nashville’s new, very romantic, Sinatra Bar and Lounge. I cannot remember a visit to a restaurant that was so perfect in every respect, including food, service, atmosphere, and great live music (Sinatra songs, naturally). After great cocktails, I had carbonara, the real thing, the way it’s made in Italy with Guanciale (from the pig cheek), and Crystal, in her lovely dress, had Bolognese that she loved, among other dishes and a complimentary tiramisu for our anniversary. We can’t wait to go there again. 

My new third symphony is fully underway now, five minutes in, and I’m loving working on composing and orchestrating this symphony several hours a day as my central occupation. I texted the following report to Crystal the other day when she was out: “Just did battle with a bassoon and finally brought it to its knees on a low F#.” (That was after several rewrites of a bassoon solo.) There is at times the feel of tender English folk music about the style, yet this pastoral music swells into great emotion at other times. I have a working subtitle in mind: “Reflections Upon a Walk in the English Countryside.” Someone’s mind, reflecting, could swell up with emotion while walking, even if the landscape itself is serene, right? 

I’ll get back to finish up my ballet once we have a choreographer on board. I have also been working on writing a speech on the topic “Truth in Music” that I have been invited to give at the upcoming Fellowship of Catholic Scholars 2023 National Conference in Washington, D.C.

Crystal is enjoying being out of school and gardening, doing some auditions, and getting to see some of the local musical theater shows that her thespian friends are cast in. Among those, I go to my favorite shows with her, which are the more classic shows that gave us so many independent songs. By that I mean songs that were good enough to stand up alone and have a life apart from the show, and were later covered as hit radio singles by several of the great recording artists – show songs like “Night and Day,” “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered,” “If Ever I Would Leave You,” “Younger Than Springtime,” “Some Enchanted Evening,” and “Till There Was You” (you know, the one with bells on the hill). As much as I enjoy the acting, a musical without at least one hit tune in it, for me, is like a bun without a hot dog.

I’m happy to close with pictures of some of our new “flower children” in the garden. When I water them, I like to imagine little smiling faces on the blooms, or them all singing in preschool voices like a little flower choir. We have also enjoyed seeing the tiniest of spotted fawns that I think we have ever seen on our back meadow, always trotting gleefully after and in circles around its mommy. Alas, I have so far been unable to capture them in a photo.

A student once asked me, “Is there a secret to great art?” I answered, “Yes, but I’m sorry I can’t tell it to you; it’s a secret.”  I confess I may not entirely know that secret, but I think I know part of it: True art is not in a separate compartment from the rest of your life. It is the product of the rest of your life.