Music

Before electricity, there was music. Apart from the radio, though, it had to be live.

We had a piano in the living room, a black upright with ivory keys purchased, no doubt, from the Eatons catalogue. I remember that Madeline played it by ear, which means that she could rattle off any piece that she had heard.

After she left home to work in Brockville, she brought home a boy friend who was a trained pianist, the first to enter our doorway I am sure. He played Rachmaninoff flawlessly, and I remember sitting enthralled since I had not heard anything in the way of classical music, except on the radio as the introduction to Maw Perkins or another of the afternoon soap operas.

My mother played the piano, but she focussed on hymns. I think she could read music enough to turn out a reasonable rendition of Rock of Ages. In case you don’t know it, this hymn was a favourite at the Presbyterian church service because it is slow and dolorous, suiting the dour gray-haired Scots that attended.

Ray was really musical. He was always picking at a guitar and singing cowboy ballads or squeezing the accordion and belting out the latest songs. He was self-taught, but a natural performer in those days before CDs and iPods.

We had a neighbour that could play the fife and step dance at the same time. Getting Ray and him together for a concert in the living room was really something.

And I used to sing, with the emphasis on "used to." I remember singing "You Are My Sunshine" as a duet with Barbara Douglas at about the age we are in the picture above. That school concert was my debut, and I am sure my sisters thought that it was very cute.