The Sound of Music

Theme 1: Prologue

This is a story about growing up with my mom and music.

It’s easier for me to write about distant ancestors than it is to write about people I actually knew. Sometimes I get overwhelmed, partly because I know so much about them. I think: “I can’t include everything, but how can I narrow it down?” Or, “I need photos, dates, and evidence to back up my memories.” Or, “This will open a can of worms.” Or, “Who cares about this, anyway?”

Yes, I have many of the same thoughts that prevent many of you, too, from writing about your families. What do you think inspires people like me to write books like What’s a Photo Without the Story? How to Create Your Family Legacy – ?

So this story will be, by definition, imperfect. Imperfect in that it can’t possibly include everything, not even everything having only to do with music and (mostly) limited to a 12-year period of time. It’s a blog post, not a book.

After doing some newspaper research and getting overwhelmed by the number of times my mother was mentioned in conjunction with music, I allowed myself to simply reminisce.

I did not go digging through the family photos, many of which are still in Mom’s Boxes, or sort through my pile of piano music (and hers) for more titles. I did Google a few pieces that came to mind, and have provided links for your listening pleasure. OK, they’re for my listening pleasure, but I hope you enjoy them too!

Maybe there will be more later, but for now there’s this. I encourage you to just start somewhere and write what you know, too. You can add to it later if you want to.

 

Theme 2: Childhood

Growing up, our house was always full of music, thanks to my mom. At any given moment one could hear Mom playing the piano or marimba; classical or popular records playing on the stereo console; one of us kids practicing an instrument (piano, guitar, violin, clarinet); or Mom giving piano lessons or accompanying a singer rehearsing for a performance.

More than a Minister’s Wife

Most minister’s wives contribute to their church communities by supporting their husbands both publicly and behind the scenes, by planning and hosting events, and by offering aid and guidance to church members. My mom did all that while also being in charge of the music. If we weren’t at home or school, we were likely at church. When my three younger brothers and I were very young we sat in the front row during Sunday services while my dad preached and my mom played the organ. We tried our best to behave and to avoid nodding off. When we were older we, too, participated in youth groups and choirs. In addition to playing the organ, she accompanied various soloists, choirs, and ensembles on the piano. I’m only realizing now that her “Choristers” group was a secular group called The Boise Choristers.

In addition to playing classical, religious, and popular music, Mom liked to improvise. One of her favorite techniques was to play only the black keys. (Huh. I just found a YouTube tutorial about this. But she was doing it 50 years ago.)

 

The Sound of Music

When I was 8 years old, my mom took me to see The Sound of Music. It was released the same year we moved to Boise, Idaho (1965). It was not only a wonderful, commercially successful, award-winning movie, it was also memorable to me as the first film we’d ever seen together, in a theater, just us girls. So I felt special. Naturally, I think of her whenever the movie or one of its songs comes up, which has been countless times in the subsequent decades! She also took my little Brownie troop and my oldest younger brother to see Mary Poppins (another Julie Andrews musical) while we still lived in Cayuga, Indiana. It was our first movie in a theater!

Bandshell

How many times did we drive (or walk) down to Julia Davis Park, lay out a picnic blanket, and listen to a community band playing John Philip Sousa marches? Every 4th of July, for sure, but there were other times, and other types of music, as well. I Googled bandshell and was pleasantly surprised to see that the first Wikipedia photo example was our bandshell in Julia Davis Park! (What were the chances of that?!) I vaguely remembered there had been a fire, but did not know that it had been restored and renamed for jazz musician Gene Harris. (Here’s an article about its history. And this page  shows additional views including one from the grand opening performance in 1928.) I suppose this is where my love of outdoor concerts began.

Piano Lessons

Mom was my first piano teacher. After a couple of years, when we moved from Cayuga to Boise, she signed me up with Probably, if you had asked her, she would have said I had outgrown her capabilities for teaching me. But I think it was also to avoid mother-daughter squabbling. Also, I realize now that there probably were no other piano teachers in Cayuga. (There were no movie theaters, either. She had to drive us to Danville, Illinois for that.) Years later, she taught piano lessons again in our home to supplement her income.

I took lessons between the ages of 6 and 19. My brothers took lessons as well, but only for a few years each. When I was 17, Mom bought a Baldwin grand piano, which was so much nicer than our old upright that it became a pleasure to practice the hour or more a day that my teachers recommended!

Puppet on a String

One summer she bought Blooming Hits, an instrumental album by Paul Mauriat and his orchestra. The album spent five weeks at number one on the charts in 1968. We visited her parents in Albuquerque, and I remember dancing around like marionettes in Grandma’s living room (the only room with a swamp cooler) to the tune “Puppet on a String”. I’m talking Mom, and all of us kids, and maybe even Grandma, briefly. I see now that the whole album was only 26 minutes long. It was the soundtrack of our summer.

Puppet on a String

Here are some other things I remember listening to and watching as a kid:

Bunky the Monkey (A 10-minute children’s story with a symphonic background.)

Smothers Brothers Boil that Cabbage Down (This is a link to a television video clip, but we had the Golden Hits of the Smothers Brothers Vol 2 album.)

Copeland — Appalachian Spring

Peter and the Wolf (Young People’s Concert: “Young Performers No. 1” / Bernstein · New York Philharmonic. Did you ever watch that series?)

Walt Disney’s Fantasia (We saw the movie in a theater. Here’s an iconic scene: Sorcerer’s Apprentice).

Walt Disney’s Fantasia — The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

Popular Music

My first three albums as a teenager, which I requested and received for Christmas all at the same time, were Carole King – Tapestry; Paul McCartney – Ram; and Gordon Lightfoot – If You Could Read My Mind. So, 1971. And I remember buying Moody Blues – Every Good Boy Deserves Favour with babysitting money as a surprise gift for my mom. We had heard it somewhere and she had loved it. My plan, which worked satisfyingly well, was to just start playing it and see how long it took for her to realize what it was. Then I told her it was hers.

 

Theme 3: PerformancesFestival

For at least six years in a row, I played in the National Federation of Music Clubs (NFMC) Junior Festival. This involved memorizing two pieces (one required, one elective) and playing them for a panel of judges (and a roomful of other students and their parents). It wasn’t a competition with the other students, only an evaluation of one’s own skills and improvement. There was a range of ratings, the top being Superior. For every three Superior ratings, in three successive years, I was awarded a Gold Superior certificate, which happened twice. (Nowadays they apparently hand out gold cups instead of certificates.) I say I played “at least six years” because there were also a time or two when I “only” got rated Excellent.

 

Performances

In addition to Festival, there were piano student recitals of various types, school talent shows, and church performances. Mrs. Hoshaw sometimes took us to nursing homes to play for seniors. During that time my pieces came from Pour Les Enfants, a book I’ve been known to play through, cover to cover, as an adult. It only takes about 12 minutes because I only ever had the first book, pieces 1-12. Not only is it meant for children, the difficulty level is also clearly labeled Very Easy. I was always insulted by that because, at the time, they did not seem very easy to me!

Alexandre Tansman – Pour Les Enfants

Later there were Bach inventions. These two in particular:

Bach — Invention 13 in A Minor

Bach — Invention 8 in F Major

Duets

Mrs. Hoshaw had two pianos in her basement, where she taught lessons. She lived within walking distance of my house. I remember practicing and performing two-piano pieces in recitals with other students. And my mom occasionally convinced me to play duets with her (four hands, one piano), but this is the only one I remember, because it was simple and fun:

Country Gardens (piano duet)

Holsinger’s Music

After my youngest brother started school, Mom got a job working at Holsinger’s Music, where she worked for years at both locations. I, too, worked there (downtown) as a teenage stock girl. And my middle younger brother used to help move pianos for them. We all made good use of our employee discounts!

Idaho Statesman 1973

Boise State

Before I finished high school, my parents divorced, and Mom went back to school. She got a degree in Music Education at Boise State University (BSU), having previously graduated from Pacific Bible College in Long Beach, CA, where I was born. (I was born during finals, and she had to take one of her exams in the hospital!)

I, too, was a music major one semester, but it was mostly so my piano lessons would be free. To qualify, I had to take a bunch of other music classes, too, but it was never something I was thinking would be a career. By the same token I was an art major for a semester so I could have a locker in the art building. I only attended BSU for three semesters before taking a year off, moving to California, and eventually studying engineering.

Mom always said I played better than she did technically. She was referring to things like fingering, timing, and articulation. But she far surpassed me in musicality, improvisation, sight reading, composition, and transposition. If you know me today you might think I would have loved the Circle of Fifths, but I hated it. It just never “clicked”. I loved my childhood piano teacher, Mrs. Hoshaw, though. And I took great satisfaction in getting a piece, as she would say, “down to a gnat’s eyebrow”.

At BSU Mom and I had the same piano teacher, but not at the same time. I just found out (by Googling his obituary) that performed Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” for the inaugural concert of the Morrison Center of the Performing Arts in 1984.

Morrison Center

The Morrison Center for the Performing Arts wasn’t built until after I moved away from Boise. Prior to that, though, it had to be conceived, designed, approved, and funded. The closest my mom and I ever came to a political discussion was this:

Mom: Don’t forget to vote for the Morrison Center!

Me: I was planning to, but what if I didn’t want to? I can’t believe you are trying to influence my vote!

(Note: Current national politics would be the death of her, if she were still alive to see it.)

Musicals

In addition to regular student recitals and graded performances, Mom participated in theatrical productions like these:

Fiddler on the Roof — I think she was part of the chorus in this one, as was my middle younger brother.

Amahl and the Night Visitors — I don’t remember what she did in this one, but I seem to remember it involving a middle-eastern-ish costume.

Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris — She performed as part of the 5-person orchestra, along with jazz musician Gib Hochstrasser, whom we all knew from working at Holsinger’s Music.

A portion of a glowing review of Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris. Idaho Statesman 1974

Of course we watched all the musicals available to us — on TV, in movie theaters, and (less often) on stage — West Side Story, Brigadoon, Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, The King and I, Godspell, and more. I have not kept up very well, though. For example, I’ve seen Hamilton, but only on TV, and only once. Sorry to disappoint my theater friends!

 

Theme 4: Young AdulthoodClavinova

I left home, at age 19-1/2, the day after our church burned down. I swear I had nothing to do with it! And I did not have a piano during most of my young adult life. At one point, though, I owned a Clavinova — a very nice, full-sized keyboard, with 88 weighted keys, plus a matching bench, that looked like a piece of furniture. It also had recording capability.

That year the whole family gathered at my house for Christmas. We all lived in far-flung states and rotated hosting family events. One night Mom played a recital for us. I wanted to record her performance, but she wouldn’t let me. I am still sad about that. She played everything she knew, and she played it well. We didn’t know there wouldn’t be another chance. The performance lives only in our memories. (There are no recordings of me playing either, so there’s that.)

Here are two of my favorites:

Debussy – Claire de Lune (I, too, enjoyed playing this one, mostly after she was gone.)

Rachmaninoff – Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini – 18th Variation (Remember that time travel movie — Somewhere in Time — with Jane Seymour and Christopher Reeve?)

 

Theme 5: RepriseMom’s Piano

When she died, in 2001, my mother left me her Baldwin grand piano. Was I grateful? Yes. Is it sitting in my living room? Yes. Do I play it? Yes and no. Sometimes. Not lately. Never for an audience. Why not? Well, that’s a whole ‘nother story. Maybe I’ll tell it sometime, and maybe I won’t.

I can’t play anything close to as well as I did before I left home. But, in case you’re curious, here’s where I left off in my piano studies:

Brahms – Rhapsody Op. 79 No. 2 in G minor   (This was the last piece I played for an audience.)

Chopin – Etude Op. 10 No. 3  (I don’t remember performing this in public, but I played it a lot.)

Oh, I could probably still play the first movements of each, but certainly not the more challenging movements, and not completely by memory like I used to.

 

Theme 6: Coda

Here’s more — but by no means all there is to know — about my mom:

We Remember (a belated, bare-bones Ancestry memorial including a few photos and an obituary from the Idaho Statesman)

Mom’s Boxes Part 1: The shed (a 9-part blog series)

There are a few stories about her in my book What’s a Photo Without the Story? How to Create Your Family Legacy.

Gifts I Got from Mom (blog post)

 

That’s all for now.

Thanks for listening!

(I’m already thinking of things I could include but didn’t.)

Was there a “theme” to your life? What was it?

Have you ever tried writing about it? How did it go?

Please share with us in the comments below!

______________________________________________________Hazel Thornton is an author, genealogist, and retired home and office organizer.
Book:  Hung Jury: The Diary of a Menendez Juror Book:  What’s a Photo Without the Story? How to Create Your Family Legacy Book:  Go With the Flow! The Clutter Flow Chart Workbook Feel free to link directly to this post! Click here to ask about other uses.Copyright 2025 by Hazel Thornton, Organized for Life and Beyond

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