Write Now!

So I joined this writing group that meets at a bookstore on 24th Street once a month. I wasn't taken with anything I wrote last month, but here's something kinda nice that I wrote last night.

Soundtrack of My Life

The music that comes to mind from my Harrisburg years is Broadway show tunes, played on a stereo encased in a wide wooden cabinet that matched the rest of the furniture.

The music that comes to mind from my Berkeley years is Laura Webber's folk guitar instruction book, which I wrote to the TV station for, and folk songs that I sang with Joyce Roop and her mother (and her sister, before her suicide). I still remember when we were singing for some people and I began the song alone, an octave too high, and Mrs. Roop stopped and corrected me.

The music that comes to mind from my Santa Monica years is Eric Coates' London Suite, and whosit's Grand Tarentella, that mother put on the record player to enliven our efforts at housecleaning.

The music that comes to mind from my UCLA years I listened to in the music laboratory, which had maybe 20 stations with headphones where you could listen to the assigned music, and I chose to work on my musicianship with the Rutgers University Music Dictation Course. I also sang with the UCLA Madrigal Singers one year, and the Brentwood Church Choir for at least two years, including challenging music like Poulenc's Stabat Mater and Mozart's Requiem.

The music that comes to mind from my law school years is hymns and anthems I sang every week with the church choir, and played on the bass recorder with my tiny hands because I was the only player who knew both the bass fingerings and the bass clef. I also remember singing Britten's War Requiem with the Civic Chorale.

Post-law school, the music that comes to mind includes what I worked on in voice lessons, like the duet from Delibes' Lakme, and what I played on the recorder at the memorial for a friend's mother - a Bach selection that was just a bit beyond my capabilities.

Nowadays, I enjoy whatever music the classical radio station sends my way.