Happy Birthday to my Dad, and happy day before birthday to my daughter Yaretzi! We are celebrating her birthday today with a little family party.
Music has always been a very big part of my life since I was pretty young. My brother and I took piano lessons (classical music, mainly) from a fantastic lady named Verna Ferrell from the age of 8 to 18, and I also got involved in the school choruses just about every year since middle school.
In high school my brother and I attended Northwest School of the Arts, a public magnet school here in Charlotte NC, and were both very fortunate to be part of the Mens’ Ensemble led by the late, great Dr. Michael Washington. What a figure he was. A giant-hearted black man on a mission from God to give something to his community. He was a little off his rocker, or at least that’s the image he projected, maybe to scare us straight!
At 18, I started bagpipe lessons (of all things), thanks again to my mother, who along with my grandmother always entertained my wildest aspirations. There wasn’t a “bagpiping instructor” section of the yellow pages, so my mother took the trouble to ask around and we found an amazing Grade I great highland piper (grade I is extremely good) named Dave McKenzie. I took lessons from him for about 6 months, and attended the North American Academy of Piping and Drumming, (thanks again, Mom and Grandma) for a couple weeks that summer in 2001, and attended the Grandfather Mountain Highland Games, before shipping off to Navy bootcamp in August.
…side note, as you might guess, that was probably one of the best years of my life. Among other things, that summer was the last time my Dad’s side of family was all together, at a family reunion in upstate New York. What a great time we had.
I set aside the piano for a long while and focused on the bagpipe. It was a little hard to keep up with it at times. Finding space and time to practice any instrument is hard on a ship, but there are special challenges involved with bagpiping! Fortunately I was able to use a fan room for practicing on the practice chanter, and I found a friend who also played! This is a picture of us playing on the flight deck, taken by a ship’s journalist.
Scott Watson (left) and myself.
On our first deployment, when our ship pulled into Portsmouth, England, Scott and another friend and I took seven days of leave in Edinburgh, Scotland. I was completely spoiled by that adventure. Every day we went out to the pubs and didn’t come back until 3am. We always started and ended with our favorite pub, called Hebrides. My favorite memory of our trip was talking to locals over a beer at that pub. In particular I remember a long and cordial conversation with an art instructor from a local university. Somewhere I have a cherished photo of the two of us. I’ll post it when I find it.
When I went to the Naval Academy, a major draw for me was the Pipes and Drums. I helped to build that organization up as Pipe Major and then President with so many memorable fellow midshipmen like Jeremy Severson (2007), Ian Sciford (class of 2010, an absolutely phenomenal piper), and Mike Harper, and many others.
Fast forward to the present, I’m a reservist, teacher, software developer, dad and husband, and don’t have any time for bagpiping, but I still play a little piano every now and then.
When I do find the time for music, I find that it hits me in a spot that nothing else really can. My favorite song now for a couple of years going, is Si Bheag Si Mhor, an old Irish tune. This is an excellent piano arrangement, exported from a midi file.
This was supposed to be a post about music software and tools, but I ended up telling my life story instead, so I’ll do the tooling post another day! 😄