Just down the street from little Velda, close to the old railroad track, things were happening….things she wanted to be part of…
When she was just about four years old, she became aware of Mrs. Muzette Brown’s group piano lessons…and she wanted more than anything to learn how to play the piano…
Not telling anyone where she was going, she would just “show up”, as she remembered, at Mrs. Brown’s house during lesson time.
“Mrs. Brown, being a very nice person, and apparently being perceptive about my hunger to learn, would succumb to my pleadings and would give me some little thing to do to keep me from being so obnoxious…”, Velda remembered…
When her mother finally realized what was going on, she paid Mrs. Brown a visit herself. “She’s much younger than anyone I’ve ever taught”, said Mrs. Brown, “but I’m willing to take her on if you wish to enroll her”, she said.
Her parents eventually “gave in”, as Velda put it, and she was a regular student at Mrs. Brown’s for many years.
“I regret to say that although I continued with piano lessons for quite a few years, I was never a ‘child prodigy’, and I finally convinced my parents to be satisfied with that obvious fact…”, Velda said.
She quit lessons while an older school girl, but later in life regretted that she didn’t study longer…
I started taking piano lessons around the time I was 7 years old, continuing until I was 17. I didn’t always enjoy the lessons & daily practicing, but I do love playing the piano now, and I’m so grateful that I can.
I always just assumed my parents paid for my lessons all through the years, and one day, a year or so ago, I thanked my mother for doing that.
“Oh, we didn’t pay for them”, she said, “your grandparents did.”
I never knew. They never said one thing to me about it. They were ever supportive, always wanted to hear me play, but they never told me.
They’ve both been gone for years now…I wish so much that I could thank them for this…and, well, I guess I am right now…
Thank-you Velda, thank-you Dow, for the gift of music in my life…
I love you.
Julie
