Sound Judgement?

I teach music appreciation to seniors, review classical concerts, play the piano, and generally listen to a lot of music, so this is just a selection. Early in the new year my friend K (whose voice sounds as close to Maria Callas as you can get) and I performed for a friend's 90th birthday. And "My Way" just doesn't get old. It started out as a French love song, "Comme d'habitude," Paul Anka bought the rights, translated it into English, and gave it to Frank--the rest is history.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQzdAsjWGPg

The next morning I went to my barber shop, where my barber brags about an 'almost haircut' he was supposed to give Tony Bennett; he had, as always, the Frank Sinatra radio station on, and I heard again it, and we talked. He did shave Michael Bublé.

A couple of weeks later, it was karaoke night at my bridge club, and I decided to try my first karaoke. I asked "almost Maria Callas" (to me she is just as good as Callas) what I should sing. She checked my range, and said "Volare." Okay, a couple of practice sessions, a request for the karaoke DJ to lower the key a second, and I was off... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mppAFu3dqw

Who knew karaoke was so much fun? For my birthday, my friend took me to hear Hamilton. Actually I am a Hamiltonian (I avoid all that Democrat-Republican controversy because, hey, I'm a Hamiltonian), so I was crazy about the music and the story. Over chocolate cake afterwards I sang "I want to be in the Room where it happens!" And at some point isn't that where we all want to be?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMD14n4UOVQ

My friend and I have been buddies since grade 3 (and I am 68 now), so that is a long, fine friendship. His daughter made the brave decision to do a mid-career MBA, despite the high tuition and lost earnings. When she was admitted to a program in New England, we drove to Massachusetts and stopped at Marblehead on the way down. My friend likes to fish, so he hired a charter to fish for Striper. After casting for an hour with no bites, we stood our poles up to go trolling, right past the ritzy part of the north shore. My friend kept a sharp eye out for movement; I hummed that classic re-wording of "Rawhide," "Walleyes" (Trollin', Trollin', Trollin'...). It must have worked. In an hour we caught fourteen striper, all ten pounds or more, kept and cooked two, and released the rest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-c5o7lUcun8

Two widowers on the road, The Merry Widowers, I guess. My club's tennis pro and my Wednesday bridge partner asked if there were any women. I answered, flippantly, that the women weren't biting. My bridge partner said, well, dress up the bait. Really? Dress up the bait?

Our AirBnb had a piano, and the house rules said I was welcome to play it, so while my friend showered the next morning, I played the first movement of Beethoven's sonata opus 109, a personal favorite. I didn't quite sound like this performance by Daniel Barenboim below, but I was thrilled, and it turned out our host and hostess were Beethoven fans, and appeared in the piano room!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxB1MKOo9FI

We caught up with my friend's daughter, who was just back from an international conference, a meeting filled with policy makers. Knowing her love of musicals, I said her program is putting her in "The Room Where it Happens" and she said she had been singing that song since coming back.

You can't go to Boston without going to Fenway and catching a Red Sox game (well at least I can't), and the game wouldn't be complete without that traditional favorite favorite from the seventh-inning stretch, "Sweet Caroline." (Feel free to sing along if you want.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4F_RCWVoL4s

And soon after there was a sticky situation. I think "car" and "karma" are linguistically related, do you? My Ford truck suddenly required $3500. of repairs, and that exceeded my bank accounts, and strained all of my credit. I did a short meditation, and, to calm myself, fell back on that serene classic by Warren Zevon, "Send Lawyers Guns and Money." Just to clarify, I have never "gone home with a waitress," but that song gave me perspective on the car repair crisis.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2HH7J-Sx80

By now you realize that I live a charmed life. On the piano I set the bar for touch and expression very, very high. I am retired, and I have one student, who plays exquisitely. The test of Brahms is how slowly you can play it and still sustain the melody. She does this intermezzo better than just about anybody. She is about a quarter slower than this recording.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfEudWUUrEo

We live in different cities and I teach her by Zoom, but I went to Ottawa for Diwali, and stayed at her house, listening to her on her lovely Scandinavian piano which has such resonance because the northern trees have their rings closer together (slower growth, more beautiful tone). And in the hands of a player like her,...

For Diwali we went to a karaoke party thrown by my associate in our music appreciation business. My student's husband had a cowboy hat and a mousetrap sort of creation that made a good thwack, like the crack of a whip, so we performed, yes, and see how thematic my story is, the theme song to "Rawhide".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFGyhSifqzA

But my gal is not at my side. She died of cancer over eight years ago. And when the anniversary of her death arrived, well you probably know that widowers can be disconsolate. I often am. The technical term is STUG (Sudden Temporary Urge to Grieve--my daughter, a practicing, degree thanatologist, supports me when it hurts, and taught me that term). It happens to me more than a few times every year. When it does, I turn to a beautiful 15th century piece, maybe the most beautiful one of the renaissance, one that the research my late wife and I did let us find the date and place for, Josquin's beautiful "Ave Maria ... virgo serena." It ends with the words "Memento mei," remember me, and I played it several times. My daughter called me to make sure I was okay. I love my daughter. I asked her if it is possible for tears to be sad and happy at the same time. She said yes, she thinks so.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyGlFisv7Ng

And one Friday afternoon my friend of 60 years asked me to join him at his club. On the way he told me it was karaoke night and I should sing. I pleaded not being prepared. He would have none of it. We ate our salads while others sang. They were very good, they seemed to know one another, and it was clear that they were used to being on a kind of local karaoke circuit. One, named Super Dave, was especially skilled, and referred to singing at other karaoke locations. The DJ said last call, and my friend elbowed me in the ribs, so I asked if they had "That's Amore." Of course they did, so I sang my little heart out, just like any pianist, maybe a bit relieved that Maria Callas wasn't there to listen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyGlFisv7Ng

The DJ said to me, considerately, that I should have sung earlier in the evening, and I could have sung several times. It's the small kindnesses, often, that make an evening pleasant and memorable, don't you think?

The Christmas season came soon enough. Last year, I played Christmas carols on the piano for the children at our club's family day. Eight or nine little troopers sang their hearts out while I played. This year, M, our stalwart Santa Claus, decided that he didn't want to play the part. This made a crisis at the club board meeting. Heads swiftly turned to me. "You could do it!" one exclaimed. Soon there was a chorus of "Yes you could!" Well, I fit into the club Santa Claus suit. It has boot coverings, hair, beard, in short everything, so how could I refuse?

There was just one problem. If I sat in the chair getting photographed with the children, who would play the carols? No problem, the organizer said, I could play carols on my breaks. And so it was. Oh they were so cute. I asked the standard questions, names, and what did they want for Christmas. But two of them were surprised. "You alreay know because I wrote it to you," they said. I had to think fast, and realized I was lucky. "Well," I said, "there's a Canadian postal strike, so I haven't gotten all my mail yet."

And the carols? Of course yes, during breaks. My favorite is "Good King Wenceslas." It has a medieval melody from a carol for spring "Tempus ad est floridum," It is the time of flowering.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zv8PgukSLX0

And although I do not sing them since retiring, I have great memories of the words I made up, very mildly sacrilegious, when, in the cold, snowy Ottawa winters, I led my teaching assistants to the lecture hall for winter lectures:

"Good Prof Merkley he went out, teaching winter classes / When the snow lay round about, we almost froze our ___ faces .... Hither teaching assistants and stand by me, if you know it telling / Yonder student who is he, and where the heck are we going? / Sire we're going down the hill, it's not up a mountain / We will find the classroom there, and a drinking fou=ountain / Prof the night grows darker now, and the wind is colder / Probably you do not mind because you are much older / Mark my footsteps my good teaching assistants, tread you in them boldly / You will find the winter's rage freeze your nose less coldly.

And mostly that was true. I have big feet, so easy for them to step where I did. Well, that is just about it. A selection from my year. Oh and one more. I prepared many classes of music appreciation, and one piece sticks out. In my class on Africa I of course included different drumming traditions, but I wanted a special finish to that unit. And here it is: The Lord's Prayer in Swahili performed by the Brigham Young University Men's Chorus, voted the best male choir in the U.S. And why not? Imagine the pool of candiates experienced from the Tabernacle Choir. "Baba," father, I imagine, and "yetu" (of us?). "Baba yetu," and thank you for reading.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsINANZ6Riw