The Way We Were

You know how hearing a song takes you back to a time in the distant past? 
You almost feel like you are there?
Yesterday I edited some digitized cassettes of my daughters’ music in high school and college.

Concertos with orchestras – Mozart, Schumann, Beethoven, Liszt, Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff.  That took hours.
So I took a break and edited a little reel-to-reel tape from 1976. 

Suddenly I was back in the living room of our little ranch house.
Jeanne was 6, Karen was 3 and Bobby was a baby crawling around.
 
Jeanne was practicing on our spinet piano adding her own commentary in her little girl voice.  It was usually about the music
“Scales and contrary minor” - “I can do The Entertainer” - “Here comes the one I always wanted” - “America 76 – the WHOLE book”

But my favorite was the sisters’ interchange with baby Bobby squealing in the background
Jeanne – “Quiet Karen, the tape recorder has to have me on it, not you”
Karen – “Now it has me on it, not you, ha ha”

We lived our lives right on top of each other – in the LIVING room.

This Christmas photo some years later gives an idea of our confined space

We had no idea where all this would lead.  We kept adding instruments

Fortunately, they got along well and as teenagers the girls accompanied each other’s concertos. Saved me a lot of money at competitions
By then we had 3 pianos – a Steinway Grand that we bought used (instead of the new car we needed) a Baldwin studio and the old spinet.

The Steinway took up a huge part of our living room.
The other 2 were in an alcove off our bedroom. 
Jeanne also played electric bass with a church group and its HUGE speaker took up another big chunk of the room

Trumpet, flute and trombone were their band instruments.

Follow-up note: Only Jeanne was a Music Major.  Karen became an engineer although in 1992 she was the first non music major to win the State Concerto Competition.
Bobby played piano too.  He was very good but quit before high school.  It wasn’t what boys did and he did have 2 hard acts to follow.
 
When his son was old enough for music lessons, he bought him a drum set  LOL