The Wagner Inheritance

 

Last week I talked about the travel bug that my family got from my father, so its only fair that I give my mother equal time. She passed down her love for music and some of her musical ability. I don’t say all of it, because she was a better musician than I am.

My daughter Caroline also benefited from Mama’s musical inheritance. Caroline sings in her church choir and in other choirs whenever she has the chance, and she directs the chime choir at her church.

I grew up with music. Both my parents loved classical music, and Daddy picked the hymns we sang at church, but he couldn’t carry a tune. It was my mother who provided the real inspiration for my own love of music.

Mama also grew up in a musical family, although she didn’t realize it at the time. Apparently Grandpa Wagner had learned to play the French horn at one time but gave it up before he got married. He didn’t give up the bones and the mandolin, however. He wasn’t a performer but often played them at home.

Most of the Wagner siblings learned to play an instrument, and they all enjoyed singing. Mama’s secondary instrument was the piano, but her primary one was her voice.

As an elementary school teacher, Mama taught music in her own classroom. Eventually she found herself learning to conduct and leading choirs. She was the choir director at most of Daddy’s churches although she never replaced a willing volunteer who was already there when they came.

When my brothers and I were children, Mama gave us two kinds of music lessons. I called one of them “alto lessons” because she had us read and sing the alto on hymns while she played the entire harmony. I enjoyed the alto lessons, which were really her way of teaching us to read music.

She also gave us piano lessons, and that was a mistake. Not the piano lessons themselves, but that she was the one who gave them. The church organist gave piano lessons, and I would have learned better from her.

Although Mama was a decent piano teacher, there were two problems with taking piano lessons from her. One was that she didn’t have much time to teach us during the school year. Most of our lessons took place during the summer, and in the meantime I forgot much of what I had learned.

The other problem is that I was taking lessons from my mother. If I had taken lessons from Mrs. Stevenson, I would probably have practiced more in an attempt to impress her. But Mama was Mama. She was going to love me regardless, and I felt no need to impress her.

One of my biggest regrets is that I didn’t spend more time learning to play the piano. I can pick out a melody and play simple pieces, but I wish I had learned to do more. Maybe I should try learning more now, but I don’t seem to have the time.

I did put a little more effort into learning violin (with a teacher who wasn’t Mama), although I didn’t practice that as much as I should have, either. Unfortunately, although I loved the instrument, it didn’t love me. Dexterity is important for a violinist, and my fingers just wouldn’t cooperate.

Mama continued with her music after my parents retired. She even picked up a new instrument by joining the handbell choir at their local retirement center. And she always sang in choirs even when she wasn’t directing them. That’s her on the far right in the picture at the top of this post, singing in the choir at the church my parents attended in Holland, Michigan after Daddy’s retirement.

And I followed in those footsteps, as I will discuss in next week’s blog post.