Opinion : ♫♪Music to my ears♪♫

Okay. I'm a musician, sort of.

This weekend I was asked to play music for a wedding that had me breaking out in a sweat. The ol' "I'd can't read notes so therefore I should worry about this." In typical fashion, I listened carefully to the song I need to play.

My "music notes" for the music has 8 hash marks followed by 1 more mark and the handwritten note "higher" written beside it, followed by "2 more hash marks and "2 notes >" beside it then 3 hash marks with "soft, harpsichord" written beside that, then 4 hash marks and "> long notes" written, 2 hash marks with "full chord hold" followed by 5 hash marks and "Strings, high chords" written. This is known as Pachelbel's Canon in D...only I played it in C, because I hate the key of D.

My daughter warned me, "You need to worry about this song, it's a hard one to play."

So I started sweating and worrying.

I listened carefully to this beautiful song, which is basically 9 chords played 25 times, in the basic same way, in 7 different locations or inversions on the keyboard.

I listened again.

I chuckled.

Not only is it a mere 9 chords, played 25 times, in 7 ways, it's a simple tune.

I've been involved in playing music for, yikes 33 years, and I have always avoided the possibility of writing music, thinking I can't read music, how could I possibly write it?

It never ceases to amaze me, each time we add a new musician to our soon to be outgrown music corner at church, that there is another musician out there that feels like he or she isn't a real musician, because we can't figure out what those blasted dots, located on lines called a "staff", on page after page mean.

I know the whole, "Every Good Boy Does Fine, FACE, Good Boys Do Fine Always..." that's all I learned from music class, it's a good thing too, I use that a lot!

In kindergarten, Rose Hogan was my teacher and played a simple C Chord on the piano, one note at a time. Then she sang with each note, "Come Sit Down" the would hit the chord 3 times. I was fascinated and watched so I could later duplicate the sound on our very old, upright, black piano that later went to the home of my art teacher Mrs. Kettler.

That was the first introduction that I had to a chord, and how the notes went together.

The fascination never stopped. I started picking out songs on that old piano. One note at a time.

We moved across the street from a piano player, who gave me lessons, well, I should say she tried ti give me lessons. I got bored. I didn't care about Chopsticks, and I sure didn't care if I could play it. The poor teacher soon realized that I was just copying what she did.

Finally after a year of it, she gave up and asked me what I wanted to learn how to play. I told her the songs we sing in church. She sighed and taught me how to play by ear. Soon after, our organist came down with multiple health problems along with cancer and was unable to play. Being the cocky 14 year old, that knew nothing, and the only one in the church brave or stupid enough to jump in and embarrass herself, I started playing in church.

All these years later, I still feel like the idiot that can't "really" play, after all, hand me 10 pages of music, and I"m gonna say, "Sing it for me a couple times".

The sweet gals at our Saturday morning practice, know how to read notes, so when a new song comes along, they dutifully hand me sheet music, which I dutifully file in my notebook, never to be seen again. I tell them to sing it, and they do, sometimes a LOT of times, and sometimes they stomp and snort, "It doesn't sound right!" I just grin and agree, it probably doesn't. Occassionally they have had enough, grab that sheet music and beat those notes out for my aging ear to hear.

The fun part is this. On the way home the songs we end up practicing come on the radio. Usually they are much slower, and to me sound, well, not as good as our version.

I sometimes get bothered that I'm not playing just right. Then I look around. I have a drummer with no note reading or formal training, an electric guitarist that I believe is the same way, and we are slowly teaching our "note reading only" acoustic guitarist the joy of "winging it.,"

So after my discovery of this awesome piece of music, that I believe is 10 pages of sheet music, copied and dutifully filed in my notebook, never to be seen again, I am feeling pretty good about my gift of music.

This guy fooled everyone into thinking this music is so hard to play, and most haven't realized they are playing the same thing...25 times! (at least that many times on the You Tube version!)

Call me slow, but I'm thinking as simple as this is, maybe I should get into writing music...this guy has had everyone fooled since 1694 into thinking this was an awesome and complicated piece to play. Wish I could meet they guy and have a good chuckle with the joke he pulled on everyone. All he did is write the same thing over and over, moving the same notes around to make it sound a bit different. This composer had to have had an awesome sense of humor, I wonder if he thought it was as funny as I do.