My Musical Journey

(December, 2010) My musical background sounds similar to many other performer bios.  I raised a family and now have six grandchildren to keep up with.  I’m also still working – can’t wait for retirement!

As a young girl I would sit on the screened porch at my grandmother’s house and play the music box until the metal nubs were almost worn off the plates. I guess my mother saw some potential there because she spent every penny of the money left to her when my grandmother passed away to buy me a piano.

I had my first lesson when I was around ten years old and those $2.50 per week sessions with an elderly lady down the street lasted for about three years. There was very little theory, and she was very lenient on my lack of scale practice (which shows in my playing), but she taught me enough to get me started.

During those child-rearing years, I was too busy to do anything but annually pull out my Christmas music and terrorize the family with my lack of practice. Sorry guys!

Just a few years back, I began attending a little country church and they shamed me into providing my limited ability on the keyboard. I was so embarrassed that I began practicing diligently. Our pastor formed a southern gospel group, called the Aarp Angels with singers and players throughout the county and I was their "default" soprano/keyboardist. So then I really had to get myself in gear. The result was that the more I played, the more I wanted to play. My nervousness subsided and I began "collecting keyboards." Actually I’m just searching for the right one. If Yamaha would just put 88 keys on an arranger, I would feel like I’d died and gone to heaven.

So now I have two Motif ES8’s (why – because I ended up becoming part of a "Sunday Morning Mobile Methodist Music Ministry," which played at two little country churches), a PSR-3000, PSR-S900, Tyros2 and my latest, a Tyros3. I originally bought the Motif’s because of the 88 keys. I wouldn’t even look at anything with less. I’m using them now as very expensive MIDI-CONTROLLERS! Eventually, a good friend of mine introduced me to the YPG-625 and I fell in love with the accompaniment feature. He and I did some concerts where he played the guitar and we sang harmony while I accompanied with the "one man band." We were pretty darn good!

I’m continuing to evolve. With the help of my friends at PSR Tutorial. I'm now learning about recording, multi-tracks, bounce tracks, editing, etc. It’s really wonderful to have such a great hobby and the people at the little country church hug me every week and thank me for the wonderful music. There’s nothing better than that!

SO THANKS AGAIN, MOM – I couldn’t have done it without you.