Monday, September 7, 2009

My Musical Career

In 7th grade I signed up for band and decided to try learning to play the cornet. My family moved in the middle of the school year and I never had the opportunity again, partly due to two more moves in the next 2 years. I taught myself the guitar on my mother’s Oahu, and became pretty good on the harmonica, but never achieved the virtuosity I had imagined.

In college I took one quarter of a group piano class, but then dropped that. I was a boy soprano in grade school and was chosen to perform with the all-city chorus at the end of the 6th grade school year. I continued singing in our church choir as a tenor and even performed a few solos.

Never having taken formal music training was something I always mildly regretted. I did please myself when in my thirties I taught myself to play one hymn on my church’s Hammond organ, but could never get the foot pedaling down.

I have always been drawn to music but never had the passion to stay disciplined to learn one thing really well. I guess that makes me a sort of musical dilettante.

Drake & Des Moines-Hootenany

A “Hootenany” in Des Moines, Iowa in 1960 something

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