Music Lessons

I was a deprived child! My parents never thought of giving me music lessons. So even though I would beat away at an Egyptian leather pouffe as though it were a tabla, or stage home ballets using the fridge door as a spotlight control, and could whistle in tune since I was five or six, I didn't have music lessons. I thought I could sing beautifully, but the nuns in our school were, presumably, tone deaf, and couldn't appreciate my voice. So I was never encouraged to sing. Though of course that never stopped me from singing, as my long-suffering offspring will affirm.

I have found an encouraging friend in Robert Fulghum, a kindred soul.
I quote, from his book ‘It was on Fire When I Lay Down on It’, ‘……I am a singer. ……I sing. It is what I do. God did not put my desire together with the necessary equipment. My voice is what you might politely call ‘uncertain.’ I can hear the music in my head, but I cannot reproduce what I have heard, though it sounds fine to me……….I liked being a parent to my children when they were young and had no musical standards and would uncritically sing with me…….Singers are those who sing. Period.’

Whether I could sing or not, I was, by the time I reached college, a passionate but ignorant listener of Hindustani classical music, especially vocal music. The radio was a great friend, and my major source of all music.

When I left home and started working in another city, I decided to fulfill my long dormant desire to learn music. So a colleague and I acquired a harmonium and found a music teacher near by. We obviously lacked the necessary commitment, or inspiration, and after a few months we quit.

After several years of marriage and family life, we moved to Kochi, when my youngest son, A, was five years old. None of my other children had ever shown any great interest in learning music, and neither had this child. But somehow my long dormant maternal aspirations came to the fore, catalysed by the interest of my friend J, who was, at the time, a single working mother with a six year old son, N. We were bus-stop friends, as the boys used to go to the same school and we lived in the same building. In the afternoon I would bring both boys home from the bus stop, and N would go up to his grandmother. I cannot remember how J and I decided that our sons should learn vocal music, but we did. J being local found the teacher, but since she worked all day I was the one who had to supervise the lessons, which were held in my sitting room. J explained to me the ritual of the first lesson: a tray was set out with flowers, betel leaves and an oil lamp. The betel leaves were presented to the teacher, and the new students touched his feet. We didn’t have a harmonium and were wary of buying one, so decided to make do with an old Casio keyboard

Ah, the students. They were around six and seven when the lessons started. My son, A, had a regular kiddy voice. J’s son N had a really deep voice even at age seven.
You can imagine one thin squeaky little voice and one really deep voice going ‘saaa’ and
‘SAAAA’ at the same time. The teacher certainly had his hands full, especially as after the novelty of the lessons wore off (I think they were held twice a week), the boys completely lost interest. Two wrigglier bottoms were never seen. The teacher was a kind and honest man. After completing the first month, he declared that the boys were not yet ready to learn music, maybe they would be more receptive later on. I think he was most relieved. The boys certainly were!

(Young A did learn to play the Congo drums in school. His teacher would also give him private lessons at home, during hot and humid, sleepy afternoons. Those drums have been in storage for a while. N does play the guitar).

Another friend and I decided that it’s never too late to learn! She acquired both the harmonium and teacher, and I would go up to her flat for lessons two or three times a week. Neither of us was musically endowed, but we enjoyed our lessons and loved hearing our teacher sing. As busy wives and mothers, we were bad at practicing our scales and lessons, but we thought we were reasonably sincere. Our best times were after the teacher had had his tea and left, and then we would sing to our hearts’ content, lovely old semi-classical songs that we were probably murdering, but we both enjoyed our own singing! After several months my life became complicated with serious illnesses in the family, and my lessons just had to stop. My friend did continue for a while, but then she also lost her motivation.

Although I insist that I’m a contented person, I do wish for a couple of things,
which don’t seem possible in this birth. One has absolutely nothing to do with the other, and seems most foolish and irrational, and that is my desire to be tall and slender.
The other is to have a great singing voice. In the meantime, I will cultivate friends who have no ear for music, and who will (faints) actually applaud my singing. Any takers?