piano – Life In A Word

Roof Rats

My granddaughter has a fancy starter piano with eight colorful keys. A flip of the switch and she can play musical notes, animal sounds, or hear the colors of the rainbow. She’s not even a year old so she pounds more than plays, creating a chorus of owls, frogs, birds, and rabbits. Those four I can handle. But every now and then she throws in a squirrel and the hairs on my neck stand at full attention.

Maybe you agree; it’s a little odd to include a rabbit in keyboard animal sounds (does a rabbit even make a sound?) Admittedly, the little piano trill conjures a furry friend with a twitching nose. On the other hand (paw?) the squirrel sound is a toneless gnawing burst, sounding very similar to the real squirrels who sharpen their teeth on my metal gutters. Whoever created this keyboard is having a good laugh at my expense. “Let’s see; I have the entire animal kingdom at my fingertips and I only need to come up with eight sounds. Let’s go with a squirrel!”

You sense my wrath already (and I’ve only logged a couple of paragraphs). But here’s the thing. I’m sitting here at my kitchen table, typing away, and I can’t claim full concentration because I’m expecting the sound of rodent enamel on metal at any moment. Words fail to describe it. Just imagine the grind of a dull hand saw… back and forth, back and forth on the gutter.

It’s not like the squirrels don’t have other nearby options for hanging out. We have fence lines dividing our pastures; convenient raceways when the squirrels dash to their trees and back. And about those trees: dozens of pines and oaks, with broad branches inviting a squirrel nest or ten. So why is one of them always attracted to the heights of my house?

The battle began last spring. The squirrel scampered happily across the peaks and valleys of my roof, pausing occasionally to gnaw a shingle or a gutter. Eventually he discovered one of my vent pipes tasted pretty good too, and realized with just a bit of mouth work he could open up access to the inside. Now we have a problem. I pictured all kinds of mayhem inside my attic: droppings, nests, stolen insulation, chewed electrical wires. It was time to take action.

My initial defense was a complete failure. The former owner left a full-size plastic owl behind – one of those bobble-head figures that looks remarkably lifelike. So I placed the owl close to the house and watched through the windows. Bobble bobble. The squirrels hesitated from a distance, eventually crawled cautiously closer, then pretty much made friends with my plastic predator. I checked Mr. Hoots recently and noticed his ears had been chewed off.

When yet another squirrel called “dibs” on my roof a few months later I knew it was time to get serious. Looked into my options and dropped a few bucks on a Crosman “American Classic” bolt action pellet pistol, a variable-pump long-barrel that looks more intimidating than it shoots. You drop in the ammo, pump a few times, and the compressed air blasts the pellet to kingdom come.

Now then, here’s why my pellet gun was about as effective as the bobble-head owl. One, my shaky hands have the gun pointing everywhere but directly at an annoying squirrel. Two, I’m old enough to need readers to align the sight at the end of the barrel. And three – and here’s the kicker – the impact of the pellet is nothing more than a gentle nudge. Seriously, these squirrels have so much fur and fat they could probably take a dozen pellets while pawing their little noses at me.

It’s a humble exchange – the squirrels and me. The first time I shot anywhere near one of them, I kid you not – he ducked. He was poised on my roof line staring down at me, wondering what the heck I was about to do, when suddenly BLAM! and my little pellet went whistling harmlessly over his head. Then came the ducking move and the amused stare, as if to say, “Missed me!”

So why do I still fire off a pellet every time a squirrel goes gnawing on my gutter? I think it’s one of those false senses of accomplishment. I take the shot, the shot misses, the squirrel relocates to the other side of the roof, and all goes quiet for another hour or two. Yep, I showed him.

So the battle rages on. There will be future chapters to share in this space, and… and… and right on cue, there goes the hand saw again. Gnaw gnaw gnaw. Time to holster my American Classic and take my best shot again. Oh wait, hold the phone – heh – it’s just my granddaughter playing her little animal sounds over in the living room. I think I’ll go teach her a little something about dentistry and extract a piano key.

Renaissance Man

In the second movement of Antonin Dvořák’s New World Symphony, the orchestra settles down as the English horn begins its soft, wailing solo. You’ve heard this famous lullaby in one version or another, but never more powerfully than in the “Largo” movement of Dvořák’s symphony, with the strings and woodwinds providing the sweeping background (~45 seconds into the following video). It’s one of my favorite classical pieces, and my performance is flawless every time I play it. Play it in my head, that is.

I’ve developed a satisfying habit over the years which you might share (or at least, be willing to try). Think about something that interests you, or an activity in which you like to participate. Over time you’ve developed a fair understanding of your subject, though your level of knowledge and skill would never qualify you as a professional. But what if it did? What if you suddenly had the smarts or the talent to find yourself among the world’s best? Wouldn’t your life be wildly different?

My years of piano lessons never propelled me anywhere close to the ranks of “professional” or “best”. I never even advanced beyond the piano’s foundation to pursue an instrument like the English horn. To do so would’ve meant a wholly different direction in life. More practice and lessons instead of time spent with friends or years in the Boy Scouts. A different college or at least a different degree. Competitions. Travel.

Music eventually gave way to an interest in sports and soon I found myself on the basketball court more than in front of the piano keyboard. I’d practice endlessly at our backyard hoop, imagining myself making game-winning shot after shot. I did play a couple of years of JV ball in high school and went to college games at nearby UCLA. But my skills never developed to the varsity-, let alone college-level. Was I infatuated with basketball at the time? Yes, but I also knew early on I’d never be one of the greats.

You’re starting to see a pattern here and it continued in college. I studied architecture (“I’ll be the next Frank Lloyd Wright!”) but only spent the first few years of my career in the field. I had a good run with info technology companies (“Bill Gates!”) but never developed the level of expertise to be labeled a “techy”. I write these weekly blog posts (“John Grisham!”) but have no plans for the next Great American Novel.

Here’s my point, and maybe you never saw it coming. I find all of this dabbling and dreaming incredibly satisfying. My interest in a subject or activity wanes well before it becomes an obsession, and then I simply move on to the next thing vying for my attention. Why do I behave this way? Two reasons. First, I prefer to be a jack of all trades (or a master of none, if you will), not a virtuoso. Second, more importantly, I am far too content with my life as it is to ever be tempted by the sacrifices necessary for the pursuit of singular success.

There’s a complimentary phrase for people like me: Renaissance Men. We hearken back to the great thinkers and artists who came along just after the Middle Ages; Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, for example, with “unquenchable curiosity” and “feverishly inventive imaginations”. Mind you, I can’t paint like da Vinci or sculpt like Michelangelo, but my curiosity and imagination may run just as rampant. The modern Renaissance Man, in a nutshell, has “broad interests” and “superficial talents”. Me to a tee.

The next time I hear Dvořák’s “New World Symphony”, I’ll think about playing the English horn. Maybe I’ll sign up for lessons and eventually get good enough to play the “Largo” movement. Maybe then I’ll join the local orchestra so I get the chance to perform in front of a live audience! Yeah… probably not. Long before my much-anticipated stage debut, some other activity will vie for my attention and off I’ll go.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Calling… Into Question

When I first started piano lessons as a kid, my teacher gave me a little book of scales and keyboard exercises called “Teaching Little Fingers to Play”. I came across that book again recently, and the title made me think about smartphones. Our grandchildren will get their very first phones one of these days, on which they’ll be teaching their little fingers – not their little voices – to play. Maybe the first word they should type is T-R-O-U-B-L-E.

Travis Tritt also wrote “T-R-O-U-B-L-E “, one of his country music hits from the 1990s. The song’s chorus starts out with Well hello, T-R-O-U-B-L-E, Tell me what in the world, You doin’ A-L-O-N-E. Kind of describes kids and their smartphones, doesn’t it? They let their fingers do the talking instead of their voices. It’s hardly a personal relationship with whoever’s on the other end, but more like the one you and I’ve developed through our back-and-forth blog comments.

If you’re an adult with kids who have smartphones, you’ve probably had the following conversation at some point in their lives: Daughter: I talked to Jacob today. Dad: Did you actually TALK to Jacob? Daughter: Well no, we were texting but you know what I mean. Sigh…

Telephones in transition

In a sense (or several senses), smartphones weaken our human connections instead of strengthen them. Think about it: before the traditional telephone our default means of communication was face-to-face (sight). Then the telephone comes along and we go ear-to-ear instead (sound). Then the smartphone replaces ear-to-ear with typing (touch). On the one hand it’s technical evolution; on the other, social regression.

Have a conversation with most members of Gen Z and you’ll want to type A-W-K-W-A-R-D. The dialogue (if there actually is a dialogue) doesn’t flow. They’re hesitant to offer insights or ask questions because they can’t back up the cursor and retype to get their words just right. There are moments of uncomfortable silence; lots of them.

Moments of silence used to be a good thing. Flashback to my teens, when a relationship with a girl meant spending a lot of time on the phone, defined as a corded handset held up to the ear (instead of a speakerphone where you multi-task). Those conversations were priceless to a young person. Phone calls helped to overcome shyness, and were practice to express feelings or ask a girl out on a date. Sometimes we’d just stay on the line in silence, enjoying the fact we were the only person in each other’s moment.

The style I grew up with

Phone calls also helped me learn to talk to adults (and credit to my parents for not making them for me). I still remember those first few dials to people or businesses, nervous over the fact it was me initiating the conversation. What do I say? Won’t I sound stupid? I hope my voice doesn’t crack.

Texting absolutely has its merits, as a recent article in The Atlantic argued. When exchanging brief, useful information, texting is dreamily efficient because there’s none of the “water cooler” effect. As they say, get in, get out, and move on. But when it comes to opinions, recommendations, or more detailed information, phone calls are essential, if only to allow the voice to add emphasis and/or emotion. The Atlantic article made several arguments in support of the “gauche” phone call but surprisingly, “developing conversational skills” didn’t show up until the final paragraph.

Budding conversationalist

When I moved away from Colorado after almost thirty years, I left behind a particularly close friendship, one where we’d see each other weekly for an outdoor jog together. But thanks to Zoom, I didn’t really leave it behind. Once I got to South Carolina we looked at our calendars and booked a monthly videocall, where we could have the same conversations we had on the trail, with added ability to share photos, links, and documents in the moment. Our conversations are as spontaneous as they were when we were face-to-face. It’s a great way to keep in touch and maintain a relationship because technically… it’s a phone call.

Maybe Gen Z will figure this out before Gen A takes its rightful place as America’s youth. If you can’t be face-to-face, at least pick up the phone and have a voice call. Keep the topics light and spontaneous. Let the conversation flow, and don’t get distracted by typing, emojis, or multi-tasking. Build the relationship.

Dare I say it, there’s another word to be spelled on this topic: A-I. I can envision a day when you’re talking to a friend, only you really aren’t because he or she has created an avatar who looks, talks, and thinks just like they do. Heck, maybe their avatar is talking to your avatar, and you’re not even around to witness the conversation! I’d call that another way to spell T-R-O-U-B-L-E.

Lost in a Dense Fog

When I first learned to play the piano, it was a challenge to master the weight of the keys. Weighted keys allow the piano’s sound to be louder or softer depending on how hard you press them down. Since fingers vary in size and shape it takes practice before the index and ring fingers (for example) generate the same volume on the keyboard. In hindsight, if I’d chosen the theremin over the piano I could’ve developed the technique much faster because this instrument makes its music without weighted keys. In fact, the theremin makes music without any touch at all.

I should’ve posted about the theremin closer to Halloween because it produces one of the eeriest sounds you’ll ever hear. Click the red preview button on this list of Theramin Sound Effects and tell me if you disagree. Doesn’t your mind conjure up a ghostly apparition floating in the darkness of a haunted house? The theremin provides the perfect soundtrack for all things scary. New York Times critic Harold C. Schonberg once described the theremin’s wail as “a cello lost in a dense fog, crying because it does not know how to get home.” I like that (and it’s much classier than “pig squeal”).

How the theremin creates its unique sound involves too much science to keep your attention today (and more words than I want to type). Suffice it to say, the instrument has two antennae; a looped one to control volume and an upright one to delineate pitch. The player’s darting hand/finger movements – touching nothing but the air in between – create its spooky music.

Now watch the following performance. Seeing the theremin played is almost as jaw-dropping as listening to it.

I find the theremin to be a fish out of water next to traditional orchestra instruments, yet there are several other weirdos out there. The bassoon features a tiny mouthpiece attached to a massive piece of black pipe and requires a deliberate overbite to create its nasal tones. The glockenspiel (which gets points for a fancy name) is really nothing more than a metal xylophone. The tam-tam is a giant gong, lucky to be struck more than once in a performance. And the hand saw doubles as a musical instrument when you warp and release the blade (and sounds pretty darned close to the theremin). But each of these outliers requires physical touch to make their sounds. The theremin sings with mere jabs of the air.

[Author’s aside: Every time I write theremin my brain wants to override with Theraflu, the over-the-counter cold and flu medicine (“Discover the Powerful Relief!”) You don’t find many thera- words in the English language – therapy being the only other one I can come up with. I’m happy to announce I need neither Theraflu nor therapy at the moment.]

The theremin was invented in the 1920s by Russian physicist Leon Theremin (whose life story involved a lot more than science). RCA picked up the commercial production rights but the musical instrument never really developed a following. Instead, its soprano voice showed up randomly in music and movies. If you recall the Beach Boys’ hit, “Good Vibrations” you should also recall the theramin solo at the end of the song. You’ll also hear its moan in the opening bars of Fleetwood Mac’s “Little Lies”. But the theramin seems a more logical fit in the soundtracks of horror and science fiction movies like The Spiral Staircase, The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Thing from Another World, and more recently, Monster House.

My favorite account of the theremin (and with this I close) is a collection of melodies recorded and blasted into outer space back in 2001. The effort was an attempt to communicate with other worlds, including Gershwin’s Summertime and Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. The name of this collection? First Theremin Concert for Extraterrestrials. Seriously? We chose the theremin? Wouldn’t these classics have sounded a whole lot smarter on the instruments they were originally written for? No wonder the (more intelligent) races out there haven’t stopped by our little planet to say hello.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Child’s Play

When I dove into piano lessons at the tender age of six, I learned the piano is “foundational”; a good place to start if your future destination is another musical instrument. The piano teaches concepts like keys, chords, and “Do Re Mi” in a straightforward way. My son learned about foundational instruments when he started the sax – it’s best to spend time on the clarinet first (the fingering is easier). But today I want to talk about real foundational instruments; the ones I dabbled in even before the piano. I can think of at least six (and one honorable mention).

My granddaughters – ages 2 and 4 – already attend weekly music classes (which brings me no small amount of joy). They’re learning to sing and play simple rhythm instruments like drums and tambourines. So I shouldn’t have been surprised this past weekend when the older one pulled out a kazoo and began “playing” for me. Not a formal song or even a melody; just a handful of notes from what is technically a wind instrument.

Let’s call the kazoo Child’s Play (CP) #1. The kazoo starts my list of six because it’s undoubtedly the easiest to play. You simply hum into the mouthpiece and the kazoo takes care of the rest. The kazoo’s buzzing sound is utterly annoying and after a few seconds you wish it would just stop (unless your granddaughter’s playing, of course). The kazoo rides a fine line of the definition of a musical instrument. To be honest, I’d rather just hear a person hum.

CP #2 – Triangle. The triangle has often been described as “having no musical function and requiring no skill to play”. A brutal (and fair) description to be sure, but consider this: the triangle is the only instrument on this list to earn a spot in a formal orchestra. You’ll find the little guy in the orchestra’s percussion section (alongside the drums and other rhythm instruments). The triangle also outclasses the kazoo since it’s cast from fancy metals (ex. beryllium copper, brass, bronze).

CP #3 – Xylophone. The xylophone tops the triangle because it’s a percussion instrument that can also carry a tune. There’s nothing more inviting to a small child than a set of colorful bars you can whack with mallets, and they make music! Sure, you can hum “Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star” on the kazoo but it’s much more fun banging it out on the xylophone. The xylophone gave birth to the vibraphone (an electronic version) and the marimba (a wooden version), both of which generate rich, warm, beautiful-sounding notes.

CP #4 – Recorder. The recorder ranks a close second to the kazoo on the annoyance meter. A child can pick up this woodwind instrument (the cheap plastic kind, not the fancy wooden one), blow into it, and instantly produce a note. The same child then realizes he can change the note by covering/uncovering the recorder’s holes. Now he can produce many notes. And what’s wrong with many notes? It just sounds like so much wailing. Watch the video (if you can stand it) and tell me if you don’t agree.

CP #5 – Harmonica. The harmonica, another wind instrument, is also known as the “French Harp” or “mouth organ” (I prefer the former) and it comes in all shapes and sizes. A child will find his first harmonica in the same section of the toy store as the kazoos and recorders – where you find anything made of cheap, colored plastic for less than a dollar. Here’s what a child learns about the harmonica very quickly: he can fake it. If you hum into the harmonica instead of just blowing, you’ll create a pretty good imitation of what it’s supposed to sound like. You won’t fool anyone who really knows the harmonica but as a kid (that would be me), you thought it was pretty cool to whip out your harmonica and pretend you could play it.

CP #6 – Autoharp. The autoharp made its first appearance at my elementary school choir classes. It was the coolest instrument I’d ever seen. It’s like playing the guitar (pick and all), only you press down bars to create the chords instead of using your fingers. One kid would be chosen from the choir to strum the autoharp while the rest sang. Playing the autoharp wasn’t cool, but being chosen to play it? That was pretty special.

CP Honorable Mention – Hand Flute. The hand flute is a fancy name for whistling through two fingers or through the hands. I can’t remember when I learned to whistle (with just the lips) but I was certainly inspired by my dad, who gave the family a distinctive two-note greeting every time he walked through the door after work. But I never learned to whistle through my hands. The hand flute not only sounds cool (a lower note than a mouth whistle, like the cry of a nightingale) but it looks like you have a built-in musical instrument when you “play”.

Wrapping up this topic suggests I pick a favorite instrument from the list above, but the choice is impossible. Each one is bonded to special memories from a long time ago. If I had more space here I’d add others to the list (like the tricky piano horn). Instead, let’s just agree the foundation of my piano play is a team of smaller, less-appreciated musical instruments. Child’s play? Hardly.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Let’s Make Music!

At the request of several readers, I’ve decided to bring you along on the adventure of building the Lego Grand Piano my wife gave me for Christmas. I’m hoping this music-making journey amounts to a pleasing “concert” instead of an arduous one. More akin to Beethoven’s Ode to Joy than Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumblebee. No matter how difficult this “piece” ends up “playing”, I can assure you of one thing. It’s gonna take me a while; likely beyond when the snow stops flying in Colorado. 3,662 Lego pieces won’t snap together by my next blog post, nor the next one. I’ll give brief updates at the bottom of my other topics as I progress. Movements if you will, instead of the entire piano concerto all at once.

And with a tap-tap-tap of the conductor’s baton, the performance begins!

To start, we have an elegant 23″ x 15″ x 6″ cardboard box containing our unassembled piano. The box advertises the piano in three languages: English (Grand Piano), French (Le Piano a Queue), and Spanish (Piano de Cola). The box cautions I should be over the age of 18 and batteries aren’t included. Batteries? In a grand piano? But I digress…

The photos on the sides of the box tease the finished product. First and foremost, the piano really plays once I assemble the several thousand pieces. I don’t mean “play” as in a hidden music box with a digital soundtrack but “play” as in pressing the piano keys. And speaking of piano keys, Lego provides only 25. A real piano has 88. In other words, the beautiful music my grand piano plays will be more Chopsticks than Chopin. Makes sense because my Lego Grand Piano is only 12″ wide and 14″ deep. Suddenly my fingers feel fat.

When I remove that elegant box top, here’s what I see inside:

As expected, the Lego pieces are divided into small plastic bags. (On the left, that is. The right is a smaller box-within-the-box looking like a square piano. We’ll get to that in a minute.)

If I organize the bags so you can see them better, I come up with this:

The audience gasps, in awe of the complexity of the performance unfolding before them.

Okay, NOW I have concerns. First, the bag numbers start with “10”. Hey Lego, what happened to 1-9? Second, Bag 5 showed up among the double-digits like an orphan looking for a family. Pretty sure Bag 5 belongs securely in that black box to the right. Maybe Bag 5 was trying to escape.

At this point in the show, the phrase “missing pieces” tickles the pianist’s brain (but not the ivories).

I also find the set of bags in the photo to the right. I assume they pair with their partner-numbered bags when I get to that part of the concerto. But maybe they don’t. Maybe each of them is a little project unto itself.

Little beads of sweat populate the pianist’s forehead.

Yes, I’m nervous. I hastily put the bags back into the box (which suggests I’m already going backward with this project). But I do want to see what’s inside that black piano-wannabe box to the right. Have a look:

Well hello Bags 1-9! I also found a few more of those partner-numbered bags. But check out the disarray in the photo on the right. Here we have three more orphan bags and, shockingly, a few pieces that escaped their bags. What’s going on here?

The audience shifts uncomfortably in their seats as the pianist hesitates.

Finally, way at the bottom of the box, we have the pièce de résistance (Spanish: plato fuerte; English: main dish). Well hello, Mr. Instruction Manual. Weighing in at a hefty 2.2 pounds and boasting 532 pages of mind-numbing steps, Mr. Instruction Manual is easily the heaviest item in the box. He’s the equivalent of the phone book of a mid-sized city. Furthermore, the plastic bag he came in included a little slip of paper shouting, “WARNING: To avoid danger of suffocation keep this bag away from babies and children.” Listen Lego, I’m not worried about babies and children; I’m worried about me. I might be tempted to use that plastic bag to suffocate myself if I can’t complete my Grand Piano.

The pianist makes it this far into the performance without any faux pas’s (English: significant mistakes), but then I choose to open Mr. Instruction Manual to a random page. Terrible decision! Have a look:

Is this not an intimidating drawing? (Why yes, Dave, it is.) Does it look anything like a grand piano? (Why no, Dave, it does not.) Furthermore, you’re looking at Page 221, so we’re not even halfway through the build here. I’m edging towards terrified, Lego. Those pieces look small. Those pieces look many. And who’s to say the numbered bags make the one piece I’m looking for (amongst 3,361 of its plastic pals) any easier to find?

The pianist still hesitates, his hands shaking noticeably held just above the keyboard.

I wanted to finish this post with a photo of the first couple of pieces snapped together… I really did. I wanted you to believe my music-making was officially underway. But let’s be honest, my peek into the box where all those bags, orphans, and escaping pieces live, and the sheer size of Mr. Instruction Manual have me backing away from the keyboard (figuratively, followed by literally). Sorry folks, tonight’s performance isn’t quite ready for prime time. This pianist needs to change out of his sweat-drenched tuxedo into more comfortable clothing for now. Let’s take an intermission, shall we?

The audience heads to the lobby.

Fantastic Plastic

On Christmas Day, any parent of small children will stifle a yawn, having built bicycles, dollhouses, and train sets the night before. After all, Santa doesn’t deliver unassembled toys. But hang in there a few years, Mom & Dad, because the building shifts from the giver to the receiver. Older kids want to create. In my generation it was Hot Wheels, Erector Sets, and Lincoln Logs. And one other toy surpassed all others for its ease of use and versatility. Lego.

My Christmas gift from my wife this year was a grand piano. Can you top that? Okay, so it wasn’t the kind worth five figures or special movers to get it across the threshold. My piano measures a mere 12″ x 14″ and comes from the Lego “Ideas” collection. When it’s finished it will have been built from 3,662 individual pieces. I can’t wait to get started.

A grand piano made of Legos means the simple interlocking blocks I had as a kid have come a long, long way. Lego Ideas sets are “products inspired by and voted for by Lego fans”. The collection includes a typewriter, a ship in a bottle, the house from the Home Alone movies, and the apartment from the Seinfeld sitcom. Every Ideas product involves thousands of Lego pieces to assemble. Every Ideas product was also completely sold out for Christmas on the Lego website.

Fifty years ago, Lego was blessedly innocent. All you had were small bricks in primary colors and if you were lucky, a paper set of instructions to create a simple house or a vehicle. Otherwise, you just built whatever your imagination could come up with. When my own kids were kids, Lego moved to product-specific sets like a T. Rex from Jurassic World or an X-wing Starfighter from Star Wars. Sure, they looked cool when they were built, but I was always skeptical because the sets removed creativity from the experience. You’d just follow the step-by-steps in the little booklet and voila – a T. Rex. But call me a hypocrite because this sixty-year-old can’t wait to build his step-by-thousand-steps Lego Grand Piano.

Lego has an interesting history – too many chapters to cover here. The numbers tell the story in a nutshell. The Denmark-based company is considered the largest toy company in the world. Their bricks have inspired movies, video games, building competitions, and eight amusement parks. Their factories have been churning out little plastic pieces for almost 75 years. And at last count, that pile of pieces surpassed 600 billion (or 75 Legos for every man, woman, and child on earth).

I didn’t expect to be a Lego fan as an adult but then came the Architecture series in 2008, cool buildings like the Taj Mahal, Eiffel Tower, and Empire State Building. I just had to have one, so last Christmas my wife gifted me the 1,032-piece United States Capitol Building. I didn’t clock how long it took to complete but I must’ve looked awfully confident in the assembly because now I’m staring down the more daunting Grand Piano. Maybe my wife wants me locked down in my home office for the next several months?

To underscore the popularity of Lego these days, the Architecture series alone includes 50 buildings and cityscapes, with more coming out each year (the Taj Mahal was released just last summer). These sets run anywhere from $50 to $250, with the discontinued ones setting you back three times as much. Sure, I’d love a Lego version of Frank Lloyd Wright’s “Fallingwater” house, but I’m not going to pay $800 to a collector just to have one.

No discussion of Lego would be complete without a nod to custom creations. Our local Scheels department store has a larger-than-life Denver Broncos football player made of Legos, posing front and center in the toy department. The Church of Christ creation in the photo here didn’t forget seating for an 80-member choir (below the big yellow crosses). And the biggest custom creation of them all? A full-scale Lego replica of the previously-mentioned X-wing Starfighter, first displayed outdoors in New York’s Times Square. Try to picture 5.3 million Lego pieces and 23 tons of “toy” in the shape of a fighter jet. Or just check out the photos here.

Now that I’m done writing it’s time to break open the first bag of pieces to begin my Lego Grand Piano (and time for you to watch the ingenious stop-motion video below). I’ll use the stopwatch on my iPhone to capture the hours I consume to complete it. Er, days? Weeks? I mean, Rome wasn’t built in a day. Neither is a grand piano. You might want to check in with me next summer to make sure I haven’t gone bats.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia” and the Lego.com website.

(Not) Paying the Piper

Our church is weighing creative approaches to conducting in-person services next month. Pastor Bob sent out a survey recently asking we-the-congregation to consider options like outdoor church, weekday church, and evening church – all in the name of social distancing. We’ll also be shaking up the service “touchpoints”, like sharing the peace, passing the (offering) plate, and partaking in communion. The Big Guy doesn’t care about the where’s, when’s, and how’s, of course – just that we have church. On the other hand, He (She?) might have something to say about the music. After all, how does a church organ sound after a three-month absence from tuning?

It’s bad enough our congregation is gloriously inharmonious when we bellow out the hymns (no choir of angels are we), but add in a fully discordant church organ and you have a complete mess. Organs need tuning like the human back needs a chiropractor: maintenance is key. When dust accumulates and seasons change, organ pipes sound noticeably different than they’re supposed to (hence the term “off-key”). Imagine the pitch-perfect tones of a bass saxophone, but instead you get more of a sour wail. That’s an organ pipe sans “tune-up”.

Tuning organ pipes is serious business and can run thousands of dollars per visit. Consider, the biggest organs have as many as 25,000 pipes. The booming bass pipes can be thirty feet long and two feet in diameter, while the little pixie sopranos look more like metal soda straws. Each pipe must be individually tested and tuned no matter how big or small. Tuner A presses a key on the (up to four) keyboards down below, while Tuner B adjusts the pitch of the pipe up above (sometimes on a ladder, sometimes on a suspended platform). It’s hours and hours of monotonous – and in the case of cathedrals, death-defying work, one demanding pipe at a time. Better love what you do.

Here’s another reason organ tuners deserve hazard pay. Imagine you’re suspended hundreds of feet above the sanctuary floor on a swaying rope-suspended platform (I’m already saying “no”), virtually floating like the angels, and as you reach over to adjust the pitch of a mid-sized pipe, bats fly out. Yep, that’s the kind of critters tuners encounter when an organ wants for too long (or a single pipe sounds suspiciously out-of-tune). Squirrels even make their homes in the pipes – though don’t ask me how they don’t go plummeting to their death the moment a note is blasted from the keyboard. Maybe they’re flying squirrels?

In the land of COVID-19 there are no organ tuners (or very few). Those Peter Pipers are being denied access to their church-bound “patients” because a) COVID may reside on a surface like, say, a keyboard, and b) no congregation means no offering plate means precious few payments to the Piper. So what do stay-at-home tuners do instead? Why, they tune their pianos of course! Then they play those pianos hours on end. We may come out of COVID with a whole new genre of classical music called “tuner tunes”.

Talk about a sprint from feast to famine. An organ tuner’s busiest weeks are those leading up to Easter, often requiring extra staff and longer hours. COVID downpoured on that parade. Demand for pre-Easter tuning disappeared faster than Mr. Bunny himself. In the case of one tuner – profiled in the Wall Street Journal – 100 contracts withered to less than a dozen inside of two weeks. He furloughed his entire workforce, worried instead over simply paying the rent on his shop.

One day soon, we faithful will walk away from our laptops and wander back into church sanctuaries instead. We’ll spread out over more services. We’ll wave hands instead of shake hands. We’ll drop the offering into the plate from a “safe height”. We’ll bypass communion servers and help ourselves to the bread and wine instead. The organist will play and the congregation will sing; both noticeably off-key. And when that happens give a nod to the organ tuners, who will someday get the pipes pitch-perfect again.

Just hope they don’t need an exterminator as well.

Some content sourced from the 3/25/2020 Wall Street Journal article, “As Coronavirus Shutters Churches, an Organ Whisperer Changes Key”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Trilling on the Trail

An old friend stopped by to visit the other day. He appeared at my front door without warning, taking me back almost fifty years to the moment we first met. He is still quite the singer. His stride is supremely confident. Most annoyingly, he finds unqualified joy in every blasted thing he sees and hears. My friend is, after all, The Happy Wanderer.

If you’ve encountered The Happy Wanderer at some time in your life, you know exactly who I’m talking about. He is Mr. “Val-deri, Val-dera”. Those words alone should revive the sing-song tune fried into most brains since childhood. “The Happy Wanderer” could’ve been quarantined within Germany were it not for its award-winning performance by the Oberkirchen Children’s Choir (and subsequent radio broadcast by the BBC), in 1953. Then, Mr. Wanderer went worldwide-viral and there was no turning back ever.

According to his lyrics, The Happy Wanderer (we’ll just call him “Hap”) takes hikes into the mountains and alongside streams, his hat on his head; his knapsack on his back. Hap points out blackbirds and skylarks along the way, and his journey brings him unbridled giddy happiness and laughter (as in, “Val-deri, Val-der-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha…”). Our boy smiles the entire time and boldly invites YOU to join in the singing. In his final verse, Hap wants to wander (and sing) until the day he dies. That’s a little extreme for a children’s song, don’t you think?

Speaking of childhood, Hap and I first met way back then. He entered the “UK Singles Chart” on January 22, 1954, eight-years-to-the-day before I was born. Eight years after I was born, I henpecked Hap’s tune as I learned to play the piano. “Chopsticks”, “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”, and “The Happy Wanderer” were almost assuredly the first three pieces I ever memorized.

Hap wandered into my life again in the Boy Scouts. I recall a lot of singing on weekend hikes (not sure why – who’d be happy backpacking forty pounds towards some distant campsite?) Besides “John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt” and “The Ants Go Marching…”, we Scouts unabashedly sang “The Happy Wanderer” through mountains and alongside streams. Hap’s tune even made the official list of “Scout songs” (see here.)

I thought I was done with Hap years ago (it took me decades to forget his slaphappy song), but recently he resurfaced. First, on a cruise down Germany’s Rhine River, at an outdoor dinner in the little town of Rüdesheim. I was volunteered by my fellow travelers to play with the band. I manned a big oom-pah-pah drum while another poor soul clanged the cymbals. A band member played the clarinet. And our one and only performance – naturally – was “The Happy Wanderer”. To add shame to the silliness, we marched between the tables as we played. I did my best to look “happy”.

Hap’s other revelation may be a little more prolonged. On the same Rhine River cruise, in Bavaria, my wife and I bought a handmade cuckoo clock. The clock was shipped and arrived in the States two weeks ago. Imagine my delight when I wound the clock and the cuckoo bird busted through his little door, the dancers twirled, and the tiny music box played “Edelweiss”. The “sound of music” every hour on the hour! Er, every other hour on the hour. Turns out our cuckoo clock has two songs. Hello, Happy Wanderer. If I choose to, I hear his gleeful melody twelve times a day. Or, If I choose to, I can flip a switch and I don’t hear anything at all. I expect I’ll be flipping the switch any day now.

If you’d like to add to my hap-aberration, go to 1-800-FLOWERS and have a hardenbergia violacea delivered to my door. HV is a species of flowering plant from the pea family. Some call it a lilac vine. Others give it nicknames like “false sarsasparilla” or “purple coral”. It’s also lovingly referred to as “The Happy Wanderer”.

Heaven help me.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Practice-Makes-Perfect Memories

Classical music has been one of my constant companions since childhood. Piano lessons initially mandated by my parents (but ultimately demanded by me) cemented a love for the timeless sonatas and symphonies of the master composers. I built up a stock of memorized pieces – my very own repertoire. I was “hooked on classics” at an early age.

In 1947, a children’s audio story was created for Capitol Records called “Sparky’s Magic Piano”. Sparky was a little boy who hated to practice the piano but benefited from an active imagination. One day Sparky’s piano starts talking to him, and declares if he simply runs his hands across the keyboard he will make beautiful music. Instantly Sparky is playing with the accomplished skills of a concert pianist, effortlessly churning out Rimsky-Korsakov’s “The Flight of the Bumblebee”, Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata”, and Mendelssohn’s “The Spinning Song”. Sparky’s piano teacher and parents want to show the world this wonder, so they book a series of concerts across the country. But in one of those performances, Sparky suddenly loses his abilities and can’t play a single note. He demands the music from his magic piano but nothing comes. He looks out to his waiting audience in horror… and wakes up from a dream.

Virtually the entire story of “Sparky’s Magic Piano” is in his imagination, but the moral-of-the-story ending has Sparky practicing with renewed focus and hopes of some day becoming a great pianist. Also, the story aged well, as I first heard it twenty-five years after it was created and still loved it.

“Sparky’s Magic Piano” resonates for several reasons. It inspired me with wonderful piano compositions at an age when I wanted to play outside instead of practice. My piano teacher helped me learn “The Spinning Song” and the first movement of the “Moonlight Sonata” (alas, the “Bumblebee” is reserved for only the most accomplished of pianists. Watch this performance as proof: http://www.wimp.com/fastgirl/ )

Also, whenever I hear the classical music from Sparky’s story I’m instantly transported back in time to my grandparents’ house. Besides the children’s stories and toys (enjoyed decades earlier by my own father), my grandparents owned a few audio stories. Their copy of “Sparky’s Magic Piano” was on “45’s”: those 7-inch records that contained a single song on each side. Sparky’s story required six or seven 45’s (both sides), which meant you had to flip or change the discs every 3-4 minutes to hear the entire story.

Thanks to Sparky I will always remember childhood time with my grandparents. I can picture myself sitting cross-legged on their floor in front of the living-room “hi-fi” (the size of a small refrigerator back then), listening to Sparky’s story with a focus broken only by the need to flip the discs. Fittingly, that living room also contained an old, out-of-tune, upright piano, which I was allowed to play every now and then.

Remarkably, “Sparky’s Magic Piano” is still available today. You can buy a copy for a couple dollars on Amazon Music or iTunes. Have a listen to a story that was created almost seventy years ago. Thanks to your iPod you won’t even have to get up to change the discs. And if you can endure the corny dialogue, you may find yourself captivated by the repertoire of wonderful piano music – truly “classical”.