Inspiring music teachers and performers

Subject: Inspiring music teachers and performers
From: Helen
Date: 13 Aug 26 - 06:37 AM

I'm starting this topic because I found out this week that the teacher my sister and I had in 6th class in primary school passed away. His funeral is next week. That class was 60 years ago.

He included music lessons every week and this was essentially the beginning of the inspiration for my sister and I to start learning to play instruments. Other people we still know from that class are also inspired to learn music or to appreciate music.

We all bought plastic whistles called Musettes and the accompanying music book. The Musettes were short, fat rounded objects with a simple up and down system for playing notes. They look like big fat worms - not delicate and slender like a recorder.

I have been looking at the old music books we used and remembering some of the songs we used to play. Some of my favourites were When I Grow Too Old To Dream, I Love You Truly, Oft In The Stilly Night, The Rose Of Tralee, Drink To Me Only With Thine Eyes, Hard Times Come Again No More, All Through The Night, Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms and lots more.

About 30 years ago a lot of our classmates had a reunion event and we invited the 6th class teacher and another teacher to come along to the dinner. Most of the classmates stood up with their old Musettes and other basic instruments and serenaded the two teachers, mainly in tribute to the man who had taught us not only to love music but also to be able to play music for ourselves.

There were other music teachers who inspired me but learning to play music was the start.

Subject: RE: Inspiring music teachers and performers
From: meself
Date: 13 Aug 26 - 02:45 PM

We had a very good music program when I was in elementary school, and at least some of the teachers had clearly been well trained in the pertinent pedagogy. But what I was just lucky to have was a grade three teacher who belonged to a local 'Folk' quartet, called The Four Strong Winds. On Friday afternoons, she would take out her guitar, and we would sit at her feet while she sang and played for us. I specifically remember The Times They Are a-Changin', Farewell to Nova Scotia, and, of course, Four Strong Winds ....   I blame her for sending me off on the wrong track ... !

And there was one girl in the class who would always cry when this teacher sang Farewell to Nova Scotia; she had no connection to Nova Scotia, as far as I know, the song just made her cry ....

Subject: RE: Inspiring music teachers and performers
From: Helen
Date: 13 Aug 26 - 04:29 PM

Thanks meself. I have some more inspirational music teachers to write about but the folk singer reminds me of one of the high school music teachers. She was young, and obviously loved the folk and pop genres because she taught us to sing some of those songs, including a Leonard Cohen song - I think it was Suzanne, or...? Can't remember. And the trad folk song with a beautiful tune called The Water is Wide which I had never heard before.

I already posted this in the thread titled What did you sing in the school choir ? on 2 August 2026 and I posted a link to a performance of Alleluia Round by William Boyce - but our singing version was much, much simpler.

In primary school and also high school we often used the Sing Care Away, Book 1 published by Novello.

I bought copies of books 1, 2 and 3 after I left school. There are some beautiful songs in it from countries of the UK and Ireland, and other countries plus some classical and modern songs, and rounds.

Some of my favourites are David of the White Rock, The Harp That Once Through Tara's Halls, Ye Banks and Braes, The Ash Grove, Slaves To The World, and Under This Stone.

We used other books in different years including another fave of mine, The Three Ravens.

Our high school music teacher was brilliant and inspiring. I always loved hearing the Senior Choir's performances at the school assemblies. I wanted to join the group but I already knew I was below par with my singing ability. I was in the Junior Choir and we had lots of fun, and also one year each of the language teachers volunteered for some of us to sing at an assembly in a language we were being taught. My sister and I were in the Latin class together and we were in the group which sang the "Gaudeamus igitur" song. Funnily enough a group of women from my school year - and our former Latin teacher - were at a big anniversary celebration for the school about 20 years ago and one of the songs sung by some current students was to that tune so our little group in the audience were trying to remember the Latin words and sing it simultaneously.

One of my absolute best musical memories in high school was when our music teacher taught every music class to sing the round Alleluia - which is just that word repeated throughout the whole song. Then in an assembly the whole school of around 1000 girls sang the song, including the harmonising rounds. OMG! That was amazing to hear.

As an adult I joined a Welsh choir. When I auditioned I was supposed to sing the melody line but I automatically sang the alto harmony. I managed to land a spot in the choir. I invited my Welsh Grandma to come to a performance. She loved it.

And also I have to say that none of the performances I was involved in at school were ever as brilliant as this one. I'm envious!!

Lion Sleeps Tonight (MBUBE) 5th Grade Marimba Performance

Subject: RE: Inspiring music teachers and performers
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 13 Aug 26 - 06:25 PM

I can't really say how inspired I was, directly -- I don't have personal memories that go back that far -- but in fifth and sixth grades I learned my first few baritone ukulele chords from a music teacher -- and, something like 45 years later, he retired to the same retirement condominium my parents had retired to some years earlier. It certainly files as a wild coincidence.

Subject: RE: Inspiring music teachers and performers
From: GUEST,.gargoyleL
Date: 13 Aug 26 - 07:44 PM

LION - is remarkable Great FUN !

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Unfortunately, the Nancy Negative Police Force, in USA ... would leap upon dangers on stage.

Subject: RE: Inspiring music teachers and performers
From: rich-joy
Date: 14 Aug 26 - 12:25 AM

English revival singer, Frankie Armstrong, was a long-time favourite of mine, but when I actually met her (c.1984??) in Darwin and attended her Voice workshops, she became a mate of mine and of my singing friends - and a HUGE inspiration!!!

R-J (Down Under)

Subject: RE: Inspiring music teachers and performers
From: Helen
Date: 14 Aug 26 - 06:19 PM

The Leonard Cohen song we were taught to sing was So Long Maryanne.

My first introduction to playing music was in our Infants School. The whole school of about 40 students would be brought together in one big room and we would listen to a radio broadcast and there were books relating to that. I was very taken by an illustration in one of the books of an ancient Egyptian man playing a small harp or a lyre. I can still picture that in my mind. The School Principal, a lovely, inspiring woman, seemed to love teaching us basic music and her enthusiasm rubbed off on us all.

All the students would sit on the floor playing small tinny xylophones or triangles or maracas etc and play along to the music on the radio. It was very simple and most of us were not good at it but it was a lot of fun and very inspiring.

In high school, my sister took piano lessons, practised a lot and was very good at it. I tried taking guitar lessons but it was not for me. I couldn't get my head around the frets and chords. Looking back, I think the problem was that the teacher did not explain about how and why chords are formed, i.e. the logic behind them.

In my second year of Uni I had a bit of extra money - not much, but enough to splash out on a flute. I started learning that, had some lessons and took to it much more easily than the guitar. That was mostly due to those 6th class lessons on the Musette and our inspiring teacher.

I remember on a visit to Sydney one weekend I walked past a music store which was closed. Way down the back of the shop I could just see an old harp. I wanted that harp so much but I wouldn't have been able to afford it, being a poor student.

A few years later when I had started working, I went for a walk during a lunch break and walked past a music shop. There in the shop window, like an angel appearing from the clouds, was a middle sized lever harp. I went in, looked at it, asked some questions and said "I'll buy it". The shop assistant was so surprised. He said they had only bought it as a marketing ploy, to bring people into the shop. They didn't think anyone would buy it.

So then, I had a harp, no local harpers or teachers that I knew of, no one to teach me how to play, but it made more sense to me than a guitar. A couple of years later I was talking to a young woman at a Folk Festival and she recommended getting books from Sylvia Woods Harp Center in California (now based in Hawaii). I started out by buying her Teach Yourself book and also bought the video, which was unfortunately in the NTSC format so I had to pay to get it converted to the Aussie video format. I bought a lot of books from there over the years and a lot of them are Irish music and Turlough O'Carolan's harp music. I still receive Sylvia's newsletters by email - not the old paper hard copy sent by post.

Finally, after being involved in the local folk club for some years a group of us decided to set up a beginners' music session group, which is still going over 40 years later. I started out playing my flute, and then when I bought the harp I struggled to play it but gradually I began to become more capable on the harp. One of my tricks was to sit opposite the guitar player and play the chords he was playing, thanks to my brief attempts at playing guitar all those years ago.

One member of that group made musical instruments as a hobby. He eventually made me a beautiful lever harp which I still have.

Unfortunately I don't get together with my music friends these days and the harp maker passed away about 20 years ago, but everyone along my musical journey still inspires me to love music. I'm only an amateur, but the definition of that word is a person who does something for the love of it.

[A detour off topic - one of my fave jokes is:

I say, I say, my brother chews hammers in a circus.

Is he a professional?

No, he's a hammer-chewer! Boom-boom!}

Subject: RE: Inspiring music teachers and performers
From: Helen
Date: 15 Aug 26 - 05:32 PM

I forgot to say that I have always envied people whose parents or family were musical. My parents didn't play musical instruments and rarely sang songs, although they kept in tune and timing very well when they did sing. We listened to the radio a lot and they bought an old record player with lots of 78 rpm records so I grew to love that old time music, including some wonderful swing era bands and musicians.

Subject: RE: Inspiring music teachers and performers
From: The Sandman
Date: 17 Aug 26 - 03:32 AM

Pete Seeger