Footnotes on a Shoehorn

When I say "Footnotes on a Shoehorn" I'm revealing my understanding of music. Thankfully understanding and enjoyment are filtered in different parts of the brain. Within my trivia file there is the retrievable information that music notes are patterned on a staff composed of lines and spaces. The lines are Every Good Boy Does Fine and the spaces are FACE. If pressed I might find a few more terms but not for everyday use.

At one time it was foreordained that I should play the banjo-mandolin because a deceased uncle had played one. I had lessons with a musician who had learned several instruments while growing up in Italy. His main gig was conducting a local symphonic orchestra. He smoked stinking El Cheapo cigars and used the soggy end to point to various notes on the sheet music that I had misinterpreted; often gooey remains drooped from his lower lip; a sight to gag a maggot. I did discover that I could break the strings by striking them on the support edge of the piano keyboard.

During the third, and last lesson, he screeched :"That note has a sforzando!"

I did not know then what 'sforzando'. Hoped it wasn't catching. Didn't see anything except some doodling over the note. Ink blot? Could have been a dripping from his stinking wet cigar butt for all I knew.After looking up the word I still did not and don't understand it. However, that was a happy day. He told me after he collected the fifty cents for the lesson that he was no longer giving lessons on the mandolin - it really wan't his 'spashalty'. My mother had musical ability and she had already recognized that I was hiding behind the door when music talent was passed out.


Once in my grandmother's wonderful attic I found a cabinet with my mother's piano sheet music. Heavy stuff - bunch of foreign names - lots of black black notes. Her playing days ended when she cut a tendon on the middle finger - right hand. After the healing process she was never able to bend that finger.
What happened to the banjo-mandolin is blank. The genes skipped a generation and are with our oldest son.

There was a popular song along the way "Johnny One-Note". I don't even have that and wouldn't recognize it if it bit me. My friend Zim dared me to attend choir practice at the church one Wednesday night. He had me stand next to him in the bass section. The choir director, Pops, was the music teacher in high school but he was fortunate in that I was never included in his schedule.

Sheet music was passed among the choir members, Pops slapped his hands together once and all (minus one) started humming the scale. Then he asked the
choir to hum the music on the sheet he had passed out. Following the humming he got down to business and the choir broke out into song. I was doing great - lip- synching all the way. He had the choir start over again and then clapped his hands together. The music stopped and he said loudly: "Basses, that third note is a sforzando! Let me hear it." I was trapped. How does one lip-synch something he still couldn't identify?

After choir practice Zim and I were talking. Pops approached us and suggested that I find something else to do around the building during the practice hour. His hearing must have been great. Even my lip-synching was in monotone! In spite of that failure I still find myself lip-synching in church, at ball games and in other situations where one is supposed to break out in song. What a break that is for the listening audience.