{"id":101,"date":"1974-04-03T15:57:42","date_gmt":"1974-04-03T15:57:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jameswmfrank.commemoratemylife.me\/?p=101"},"modified":"2018-07-31T22:11:26","modified_gmt":"2018-07-31T22:11:26","slug":"letter-lighthouse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jameswmfrank.commemoratemylife.me\/?p=101","title":{"rendered":"Letter to Lighthouse"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Aberfoyle<\/a>Aberfoyle, ON with 1975 VW. When I first moved to Canada, I listened to a radio contest that required a written submission to win a week in a guitar music workshop with the Canadian band Lighthouse, in Collingwood, ON. The topic was why I would want to attend the workshop.<\/p>\n

I actually received a call from the promoters who asked me to come to the workshop to speak to them about writing a story about the band. \u00a0Although I attended the wonderful workshop, I declined the writing assignment as I was attending York University and working as a\u00a0Pulmonary\u00a0Technologist at Western Hospital in Toronto at the time. \u00a0The experience was amazing. \u00a0Here is the letter I submitted in the summer of 1974.<\/p>\n

Dear Sirs:<\/p>\n

One night when I was barely big enough to require a real bed, the type without side rails, I remember hearing the oldsters gather together in the front hall beneath my bedroom and harmonize on whatever the flow of music required.\u00a0 That happened quite frequently until I was about ten years old.\u00a0 I have no idea how long it had been commonplace before my first recollection.<\/p>\n

Mom was in her late 30\u2019s then, didn\u2019t look her age at all and could play a tune on the piano as well as the concert harp \u2013 played really well too.\u00a0 She had the long thin fingers and the dexterity required for the classics and Christmas carols, but could never create music from within and was later unable to understand my musical score notation of \u201cget down\u201d.\u00a0 Of course, I never got it together to comprehend her score notations; consequently to this day I have difficulty reading music.\u00a0 She never discovered that fact until while I practicing on my trumpet one day under her command, she asked me begin at a particular bar.\u00a0 After giving several notes the opportunity to be correct, I had to admit I was not sure of the beginning.\u00a0 After a brief discussion with my father, my trumpet lessons were cancelled \u2013 after a year of Saturday mornings with Mr. Kratz.\u00a0 Mr. Kratz had played with Sousa\u2019s Band and should have retired years prior but continued to give music lessons.\u00a0 I remember him of short stature, overweight, and had heavy lips congruent with a horn man.\u00a0 He set my goal to be able to play the trumpet while the aforesaid was suspended from the ceiling \u2013 no hands.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t really think of a time when I would be required to perform such a feat and therefore could not get that together either.\u00a0 The worst part was that he was a friend of the family and I was required to be in his presence thereafter, realizing that he knew of my failure.\u00a0 That way the guilt had a recurring effect.<\/p>\n

My father had a curtness about him concerning this situation.\u00a0 The facts spoke for themselves and the outcome was totally logical.\u00a0 He had been through the older school, having been born in 1889; he was fifty-nine when I was born.\u00a0 I guess he always seemed a grandfather image, stern but with a good heart; and, man could he play the fiddle.\u00a0 Hell, I was twelve or thirteen before I discovered that it was one and the same as a violin.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve still retained his violin and each year I give an oath that I\u2019ll learn to play it a bit better.\u00a0 I\u2019m improving, but there never seems to be enough time.<\/p>\n

The guitar has been my instrument now for about six years; and unlike my sister who studied piano from my mother or my brother who captured the fiddle skills from my dad, I learned myself.\u00a0 That\u2019s not completely true, because I was exposed to the music and the chord structures while pretending to play a portable Lowry organ in a teenage band called \u201cThe Chambermen\u201d.\u00a0 That was my first and last experience with a \u201cprofessional group\u201d.\u00a0 Our biggest gig was playing the opening of a shoe store.\u00a0 We were once asked to leave a school prom because all the girls were in high heels and couldn\u2019t dance to fast music, which was all we knew.<\/p>\n

I played a coffee house in Berlin, Germany; they paid $2.50 a set and didn\u2019t mind talent that was in need of about ten years experience.\u00a0 I\u2019d watch the other sets, half glued to the movement of the fingers more talented than my own and half absorbed by the music: wandering and wondering if I would ever be able to disclose the identity of each note and chord which flashed before me faster than I could assimilate.\u00a0 Once, I tried to audition with my twelve-string, for a gig in Columbus, Ohio.\u00a0 I was so uptight that I took a book of words with chords which I had gotten together in my compulsive days.\u00a0 The manager was honest and told me I had potential but that I needed more exposure to crowds larger than myself.\u00a0 He was not a bad guy but explained that John Denver was booked that week.\u00a0 All I knew about him then was that he had written a song recorded by Peter, Paul, and Mary.<\/p>\n

It\u00a0wasn’t\u00a0long after that, that I realized I was never going to be a rock star.\u00a0 I still believe it, but like most dreams and schemes, one always secretly hopes to have it happened around the next corner.<\/p>\n

So music has been a great part of my life which has been educated and has educated, has expressed eras of me and is constantly pulsing within me at several levels of consciousness.\u00a0 It has been the theory and lack of exposure which has bogged down my creative flow, like the essentials of rhythmic structure \u2013 I speed the tempo constantly, or the idea that no one has ever heard of 12-bar blues ending on the I7 chord.<\/p>\n

But by now I\u2019m ready to get into a musical workshop.\u00a0 A learning situation has the ability to enhance the creative riffs and acquiring and developing new musical skills tend to keep that creativity flowing.\u00a0 And besides all that, it would get me off this musical plateau where I have been stagnant for what seems an eternity.\u00a0 Which reminds me of something my father said that night when as a child I was supposed to be asleep.<\/p>\n

My older sister and brother had composed a duet of piano and violin which they were presenting for the first time.\u00a0 Upon completion of what I recall sounding like something that would have awakened the gods, my father smirked, with a contained grin, \u201cWell, that\u2019s one way of playing it\u201d.\u00a0 He and my mother then took over the respective instruments and accomplished what my brother and sister had attempted \u2013 playing a classical duet in ragtime beat.<\/p>\n

As to why I would appreciate the opportunity to attend the school is quite simple.\u00a0 I would never have a chance to jam and learn music from the talent composing the workshop otherwise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aberfoyle, ON with 1975 VW. When I first moved to Canada, I listened to a radio contest that required a written submission to win a week in a guitar music workshop with the Canadian band Lighthouse, in Collingwood, ON. The topic was why I would want to attend the workshop. I actually received a call … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Letter to Lighthouse”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jameswmfrank.commemoratemylife.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jameswmfrank.commemoratemylife.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jameswmfrank.commemoratemylife.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jameswmfrank.commemoratemylife.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jameswmfrank.commemoratemylife.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=101"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jameswmfrank.commemoratemylife.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5806,"href":"https:\/\/jameswmfrank.commemoratemylife.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101\/revisions\/5806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jameswmfrank.commemoratemylife.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jameswmfrank.commemoratemylife.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jameswmfrank.commemoratemylife.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}