The fiddle had absolutely no place in the Purchase School Band—I was ten years old. I had already played the violin for five years and had become pretty good at the first and third position. I had a nice bow arm, but the Purchase School Band had no violins.
Childhood memories of a mischievous, boisterous time, a fearful, timid time come to me. Couldn’t a band instrument fulfill the longing for impetuous outbursts? I remember thinking so.
I had a very gifted music teacher. In addition to being a fine pianist and horn player, she could play and teach anything that had a mouthpiece, a reed, or vibrating vocal chords. Marie Aiello did not mince words. I gave her a rough time and she gave me one too. I listened with respect since she knew what she was talking about. She even wrote Christmas musicals every year—mini-operas. How many grade school music teachers can boast of that?
I was being recruited into the School band, but what instrument could I play?
The saxophone looked funny to me and my great father “The Big O,” as some New Yorkers lovingly referred to Oscar Shumsky, did not like the funny looking and sexy sounding sax.
I thought the flute was only for girls (except, of course, for Jean-Pierre Rampal, Julius Baker, and James Galway.)
The clarinet looked like a hybrid cigar and sounded awful, at least from what I heard around me—no, definitely not.
The drums—forget it.
The sleek golden trumpet—ah, now we were talking. It was love at first sight, and my dearest mother, the greatest mom anyone could ever have, rented me a shining, new trumpet.
I loved the smell of the valve oil use to lubricate the three pistons. I loved playing with and the feel of the spring-loaded keys. I loved the masculine sound that did not forgive errors in tone production. That stream of air was everything.
I loved the sound so much and easily mastered the third trumpet part so well in “Daisy Bell” (You remember: Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do) that I did not even hear the melody being played by the previously mentioned hybrid cigar.
All the memories of sight and sound from early family years boil together and are so powerful that they need not be evoked because they escape to the surface like evaporating bubbles. They come naturally and often.
The mind so amazingly complex is capable of sound and fury and thoughts both violent and peaceful. These bind with the memories of music and create an overwhelming aroma. I guess some call this aroma (minus the violence) nostalgia.
The timidity and fear of a 10-year-old become a welcome tear, a chill up the spine, a goose bump sublime—the nostalgia of a 55-year-old.
Let’s savor rather than repress these feelings, these memories. Computers will never be human. Shouldn’t we stop trying to emulate their cold perfection?
Eric Shumsky is a concert voilist. For more information, see www.shumskymusic.com .
