By Steve Flairty
KyForward columnist
I generally enjoy the subject of music, but I’m a slow learner when it comes to understanding it. And, it should not be surprising that I’m not good at performing it, either. It’s almost like I have a mental block, much like many claim to have in learning math. Maybe it’s because I’ve always been a visual rather than an auditory learner; what I read and see, I pick up quickly… but what I hear takes a lot of extra work to absorb.
My deficit became apparent as far back as the third grade.
I recall the time in Mrs. Fardo’s third-grade class at Grant’s Lick Elementary School when she involved us in some choral singing activities. Two songs I remember stick out. One was about John Henry, that “steel-drivin’ man”…or was it “he’s still driving, man.”? Anyway, the students standing around me sure must have been annoyed because I had trouble keeping up — as in “no rhythm” and “no soul.”
Then, there was the Johnny Schmoker song she taught us. It went something like this: “Johnny Schmoker, Johnny Schmoker, can you sing, can you play?” I could handle those words, but Johnny followed by responding to the question in the song. The beat seemed to pick up rapidly as he answered the question in a proud and demonstrative way, which our class sang. Or, more honestly, to which most class members sang and I muddled through, always being a few words and actions behind everyone else. And to make it worse, my classmates seemed to be enjoying themselves!
I hardly knew what was going on in anything resembling music performing, but a few years later I started to get into listening to Beach Boys songs on radio, mainly because they often had simple lyrics: “Ba Ba Ba, Ba Barbara Ann,” or “Help, Help Me Rhonda,” or how about “Dance, Dance, Dance” repeated continuously?
No pain involved with that, and I could even pantomime those words when nobody was around to laugh at me. But I later avoided any serious thoughts of taking trombone or clarinet lessons from the itinerant teacher at Grants Lick School. I wasn’t much of a risk taker at that point in my life, and I sure didn’t want to be further embarrassed.
Years later, I took a music appreciation course early in my tenure as a student at EKU. Our class listened to lots of symphony music on records (remember those?) and we were tasked to identify music movements. I think I learned what a sonata was…something about a movement imitating another movement inside the musical piece.
Thankfully, the fact that the teacher was a nice guy helped me to get a “B” in the class. That’s because he gave us extra credit for attending and writing one-page reports of campus recitals. I loaded up on them, as many as allowed. Being completely clueless about writing an insightful analysis, I employed my innate ability to engage in, respectfully, the art of writing bovine manure on the printed page.
A few years afterward at EKU, I took a required course for my elementary teaching major called, as I recall, “Teaching Music to Elementary Students.” The part I liked about the class is that it included mostly young women. The part I didn’t like was that you were expected to gain a rudimentary understanding of music (most already had that)… along with doing some simple musical “performing activities.”
I really got off to a bad start in the class. The teacher, I guess, figured it would be both educational and fun to have each class member “sing” our names as a novel way of taking class attendance. Well, it may have been pedagogically sound (for some), but it sure wasn’t fun for me. To say I sang off-key is not fair; how can you sing “off-key” when you don’t even know what “on-key” is?
And to submit a First World problem extraordinaire, it was humiliating to present vulnerable self in front of all those eligible women.
In the same class, we had to procure and bring a small, plastic horn with holes in it to play notes, plus a cheapish keyboard. I can’t recall the song we were asked to play on the horn, but I probably messed it up. I remember well, however, that we were expected to adequately play “Hot Cross Buns” on the keyboard.
How can anybody mess up Hot Cross Buns?
I did, but I somehow passed the class, ego deflated nonetheless.
Then there was the community education class I took on beginning guitar playing; the teacher seemed to lose patience with me very quickly and I left with a sore thumb.
And recently, a musically-gifted friend of mine invited my wife and me to a local eatery in Lexington where he was performing. Things were going great until he asked for song requests. Since he did a lot of country, I asked for Waylon Jennings for no particular reason. No problem, huh?
Then my performing friend asked me to come up aside him and sing “I’ve Always Been Crazy” with him. I didn’t want to appear a bad sport, so I stupidly took his challenge.
It would have been better if I had appeared to be a bad sport.
Like, I tried humming along with him as he sang and couldn’t even stay on track. Mercifully, he let me off the hook and allowed (encouraged?) me to sit back down as I looked for a hole in the floor to hide in. I honestly think the audience felt sorry for this grown man.
Oh, help me, Rhonda.
Today, as I stand for hymns in church and silently mouth the words, I muse about my days with Mrs. Fardo back in the third grade.
“Stevie Flairty, Stevie Flairty, can you sing, can you play?”
Nope… probably not in this life.
Steve Flairty is a teacher, public speaker and an author of six books: a biography of Kentucky Afield host Tim Farmer and five in the Kentucky’s Everyday Heroes series, including a kids’ version. Steve’s “Kentucky’s Everyday Heroes #4,” was released in 2015. Steve is a senior correspondent for Kentucky Monthly, a weekly KyForward and NKyTribune columnist and a member of the Kentucky Humanities Council Speakers Bureau. Contact him at sflairty2001@yahoo.com or visit his Facebook page, “Kentucky in Common: Word Sketches in Tribute.” (Steve’s photo by Connie McDonald)