Tag Archives: Music

The Music Makers~Part 1

17 Mar

My Take

DiVoran Lites

Author, Poet and ArtistSaturday I had the privilege of taking fifth grader, Clarisse, to sing at the King Center in Melbourne. As it turned out, it was a big deal. There were only eight students from her school chosen to go. She wore her uniform, which was a pair of black pants and a long sleeved white shirt. Her teacher had a satin cumberbund and bow-tie for her and the other children from their school. Rita, Clarisse’s 17-year-old cousin who lives with her family went along too. We had to be there at eight a. m. So we got up early and drove forty-five minutes down I-95 to get there on time.

Adults and children from all over Brevard County flooded the walkways into the center. Carrie told us we couldn’t go in with her and she didn’t want any hugging, kissing, or long goodbyes, so we walked twenty paces behind and she seemed happy with that. As she walked away, she looked tall and slender in her black pants and white shirt with her hair in cornrows. She had given firm instructions to her cousin not to call out her name in the auditorium.

Rita and I headed for the counties best retail center, The Avenues in Viera. On the way, we talked about high school and friends. Apparently, high school is not a bed of roses. It certainly wasn’t for me. My take is that people want Rita when they want her, but they don’t have any use for her when she needs them and they are sometimes cruelly critical. I could honestly reassure her that she is a good person, and a smart one and she was the one who brought up the fact that high school wasn’t going to last forever. I told her I’d had some of the same things happen to me, but I let them go on for too long. I tried to persuade her that each of us has great worth and that we are free to choose our own friends.

I mean one’s whole life doesn’t have to be long-suffering, does it? Isn’t it okay to find a real and dear friend once in a while? Really, I did have some dear friends, but I thought I ought to please everyone, and I didn’t want to be self-indulgent so I spent more time with the ones I felt uncomfortable with because I didn’t want to be too self-indulgent. Haven’t we all done that—at least sometimes?

Green and pink paintingpng

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Dad’s Music

14 May

My Take

DiVoran Lites

Author, Poet and Artist

Dad was tone-deaf and he hated music. He was tone-deaf, couldn’t sing a note, well, a correct note, he did go for: “Mary Ann, Mary Ann, down by the seaside sifting sand,” now and then. His rendering was unique. I can hear it still.

Dad’s mother never played music on a radio. I don’t recall her having a radio, so maybe he got the disability from her. I do know he became angry when I played mine too loud. But doggone it, I loved music, couldn’t get enough of it. I bought the, “Hit Parade,” magazine every week, laid on my bed and sang all the songs to myself until bedtime.

For our bar and restaurant, we had to have a juke box. What a wonderful, magical thing that was, beautiful too. And you know, even though Dad didn’t love music, I suspect that he must have loved his little daughter who delighted in song and dance. Sometimes when we had no customers, he’d give me the key to the jukebox (we called it a jute-box) and let me trip the trigger fifty times in order to play every single record on there. If it were winter the big table would be gone from the 10×10 dining room and I could dance to my heart’s content while Dad loaded bullets in the other room. There were a few songs he did like. I guess it was the words. He liked: “Tumbling Tumbleweeds,” “Smoke, Smoke, Smoke that Cigarette,” and, “I’m Looking Over a Four Leaf Clover.” I wonder how I know that.

Dad liked to load up mom, brother, and me, they called me, Sister, and go down the mountain roads to visit his mother and dad. The scenery made me want to sing, “When it’s Springtime in the Rockies,” and “C. O. L. O. R. A. D. O, (I love you.) quietly to myself. Sometimes I made up songs. I didn’t think anyone could hear me over the hum of the car, but I was wrong. One day my dad was taking Granddad somewhere and Granddad said, “She sure knows a lot of songs.”

“She makes some of them up,” said Dad. How did he know that?

“Well, well,” said Granddad approvingly and I thought, looky there, I’ve done something good.

One year when we took our annual trip with kids to visit Mom and Dad in California Dad had some cassette tapes in a holder on the front seat of his king cab. Of course I read the titles. You’ll never guess in a million years… Believe it or not, they were opera tapes! I hadn’t even learned to like opera myself. When taxed with the incongruity, Dad admitted it. He actually liked to listen to opera tapes driving down the road. Did that mean he missed the little music maker in the back seat? I’d like to think so. “Yep,” says he…”drives your mother crazy.”

I like opera now, too. I’m listening to Pavarotti, as we speak. You hear that, Dad?

 

Dad and I

Dad and I

DiVoran and Pavarotti at Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum in London, England

 

DiVoran and Pavarotti at Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum in London, England

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A Moment with the Master

28 Jan

My Take

DiVoran Lites

DiVoran Lites

 

A friend of Bill’s invited us to the dedication of the new pipe organ at his church. We went early and waited long. When we finally got into the church, we sat down facing the front wall where some of the organ’s pipes were worked into a beautiful and artistic cross.

The church held 350 people, but we found out later the crowd had swelled to 600 in the foyer and around the aisles and were grateful for the suggestion to arrive early.

One thing we had time to do was to read the excellent program we’d been given. Here are a few of the things we learned about the organ: The pipes we could see were just a sample of the number of pipes behind the wall, 2,197 of them to be exact, each with its own voice. The A. E. Schlueter Pipe Organ Company, pipes are made by hand one at a time, no assembly process there. The organ is assembled at the factory and tested for sound, then disassembled and taken to the church where it is put together so voicers could adjust it for the acoustics of the building.

The organist, Peter Beardsley, who is a wonder in his own right, played. “The Carnival of the Animals,” by Camille Saint-Saens, and several other pieces and we immersed ourselves in the music. We learned from him that if the organ as instrument had a patron saint it would be Bach.

The concert was almost over when one little pipe decided it did not want to stop sounding off. It wasn’t too loud, but no more music could be played while it was stealing the show. Mr. Beardsley rose and the pastor went to the front along with several other people. Everyone looked puzzled and helpless.

Down the aisle from the pew behind us strode a very big man in a black suit who had been introduced to us earlier as A. E. Schlueter, himself. A wave of relief swept over the crowd. He spoke to the puzzled professionals at the front and then came back to his seat. In a moment, the pipe quieted down.

So now, maybe you think the point of this story is to tell you that the master organ maker made everything right. Yes, that’s what I thought at the moment. But just to make a good thought better I wanted to know what the master had done to make it happen. As we filed out past Mr. Schlueter he was greeting people and shaking hands within a foot of us.

Oh please let me ask him a question, I thought, and to my delight and surprise he moved closer to where I was standing and looked right at me. Out of six hundred people, I was to get my answer without having to try to find him and talk to him at some other point, which I probably wouldn’t have done thinking he might be too busy for me.

“Did you do something to fix the organ?” I asked.

“I sent a man up to release the stuck valve,” he answered.

“Oh, the master was here. That’s the theme.” I said with delight. He understood that I was writing even though it looked as if I was just standing in front of him.

“The Lord has a sense of humor,” said Mr. Schlueter. “He likes to keep me humble.” It seemed as if he wanted me especially to tell my readers that, so I have–your own special message, dear reader, from the master.

And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying: this is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left.

 Isaiah 30 : 21

Pipe Organ

 

 

 

 

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