A Virtual Church

Thank you, John Thompson

Today

Grandmother Stroud gave me piano lessons from first to fourth grade. Teaching Little Fingers to Play, and the other teaching books by John Thompson were the books from which I learned until I was in fifth grade.

Grandmother’s house was just across the street from the Ayden “Low” School on Third Street. I would walk to her house once a week for a thirty-minute lesson, then walk to my house on Fourth Street.

In fifth grade, I began taking piano lessons from Virginia Belle Cooper during the school day. Her students were given a 30-minute excused absence from class to take lessons. I studied piano with her from fifth to twelfth grade. That excused absence would not happen today.

Recitals included my playing Fur Elise, Moonlight Sonata and Claire De Lune (marginally.) I played duets, quartets, and octets with classmates who were better than I. Elaine, Joanne, Nina Jane, Marion. I can still see their hands on the keys. I was mostly thumbs, but they tolerated me as we played Hungarian Rapsody and selections from The Nutcracker.

Mother had a small baby grand piano. She was a good pianist and thought her children should learn to play. We did. And we sang around the piano – Mother played. Laine sang soprano. Me, alto. Richard, tenor and Daddy, bass. We were the freaking Von Trapp Family!

When Tom and I married, he bought me an upright piano. We antiqued it white and kept it in our home until we moved to Elizabeth City, and he bought me a small grand from a church that wanted to sell it. It was actually a converted player piano.

I kept that piano until I was 50. Mother told me once, “Libby, you think the only piano is a grand piano.” Here’s the deal. I have played uprights. I have played spinets. There is nothing like a grand. They don’t have to be Steinways. People all over are looking for places to unload grand pianos.

On my fiftieth birthday, Tom gave me a small grand piano. It was the best gift I have ever been given. For years I played almost every day. I never played for other people, except at our Christmas Eve Gathering. For years “Thumbs” played the piano, until, thankfully, better pianists came along.

I still have that piano. Jay tunes it every year. When we have entertained during the holidays, I have invited people to play for our guests. Hearing it played brings me joy.

Playing it still brings me joy. I sit on the bench. I like to play hymns and sonatinas and show tunes. The piano is a place of prayer for me. I have kept prayer beads and a cross and a journal there for my prayer time.

I thank John Thompson for books that my Grandmother taught these little fingers to play.

There are lessons we learn from music. We learn the right notes for the right songs. We learn measure and tempo and rhythm. We learn what harmony is and what dissonance is. We learn how to share a keyboard and when we go solo. I personally found that playing with others is the best thing in the world.

When school budgets are cut, the arts are often the first things to go. Art and Music are sometimes seen as peripheral to good education. When art was cut at the elementary school our children attended, I took art every week for a year into the second-grade classrooms, at my own expense. A fully rounded education includes art, music, and literature immersion. The arts make us better people. The old saying, “music soothes the savage beast,” applies here.

Find a choir. Find a piano and get a few books, and a good instructor to teach you the joy of music.

There is so much discord and dissonance in our world today. It frays our nerves and causes angst. Music is a great leveler and calmer. Be the one who says to a fraying world “let us find peace. Let us find joy. Let us find music and fill this broken world with it.”

Lib Campbell is a retired Methodist pastor, retreat leader, columnist and host of the blogsite www.avirtualchurch.com. She can be contacted at libcam05@gmail.com 

 

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