St Cecilia and I

Today is the Feast of St Cecilia, a Patron Saint who obviously deserted me! She is the Patroness of musicians, and that is one thing I'm not!

When I was a boy, my Mum scraped together the money to pay for piano lessons for me. My teacher was Mrs Hamm, and I'm sure she despaired of ever making a pianist of me. I hated practicing and was not interested in playing piano, but Mum insisted.

Mrs Hamm did her best. I eventually reached a point that I could play a few simple compositions, but the only thing that I remember from all those lessons was the very first tune in the first book, which was played only with the right hand. It was 'Here we go, in a row, to a birthday party'. Sixty-five years later, I can still play it!

That was my first attempt at being a musician. When I reached high school, I decided I wanted to be in the band. I wanted to be a drummer, but our school was quite small, and the drums available were all spoken for. What was left was a tuba. There was a Sousaphone, as well, but it was spoken for by an upperclassman. So, a tuba player I became, or at least I tried!

As I said, the school was small. So small, in fact, that in order to field a band during half time of football or basketball games, the players had to play their instruments in their sport uniforms. Since every boy in the school participated in all varsity sports, this meant that all the male band members played in uniform.

To make matters worse, the school was also poor. In fact, we did not have a harness with which to carry the tuba during half time of football games, when we became a marching band. It is a special challenge to try to simultaneously march in time and play a tuba that you might drop at any second!

Needless to say, St Cecilia took one look and said, 'This boy is hopeless'! Over the years, I've also made her worry as I tried to master the balalaika. I figured that the balalaika only had three strings, so it shouldn't be that hard, right? Wrong! I sort of got the hang of the gusle, which only has one string, but the problem was that it is always played in accompaniment to singing, and I can't sing. (You've heard the saying, 'He can't carry a tune in a wooden bucket'? Well, it's been said I can't carry a tune in a bushel basket!)

I even tried to learn the recorder. I figured it was an instrument children in grades three and four master, so I should be able to as well. Again, wrong! St Cecilia just shook her head.

I honour St Cecilia as the Patroness of all the great composers whose music I enjoy, but I have no claim on her as my Patroness!