Bob

Batz

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January 23, 2009

My Noteworthy Musical Career

Have you ever awoken in the morning with a song bouncing around in your head and no matter how hard you try you can’t get rid of it?

It happens to me all the time, but the songs make no sense.

One morning the tune was The Battle Hymn of the Republic. Another time it was the theme from the old TV series Gilligan’s Island.

Last week my first wife Sally eyed me suspiciously when I showed up at the breakfast table singing “Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey.”  

“Oh, really,” she said, peering at me over the rim of her coffee cup.

“I’m sorry,” I told her. “For the last few days I’ve been waking up singing all kinds of songs and I don’t have the foggiest reason why I’m doing it.”

Then I ended my sentence by launching into my spirited rendition of “It’s Howdy Doody time, it’s Howdy Doody time.”

What makes my singing so ridiculous is I’m not the least bit musically inclined. Never have been. Never will be. Oh, sure, my first music lessons came when I was in third grade and took piano lessons from Miss Frieda Wilson, the music teacher at Oak Street Elementary School. But it turned out to be a really lousy experience for me because the school didn’t have enough money for a real piano, so it issued cardboard keyboards to its music students.

The first thing I learned was it’s really difficult to get any sounds out of a cardboard keyboard. You can bang away at a cardboard keyboard all day long and the only thing you ever hear is . . . um . . . cardboard.

That was the end of my music training until I was married and my wife Sally bought me a guitar for Christmas. She also agreed to pay for guitar lessons, so I jumped right in.

But, alas, after the first 342 lessons, I still couldn’t play the guitar.

My instructor - I don’t recall his name – told me, “Don’t worry, Bob, the key to playing the guitar is building calluses on your fingers so you can pluck and strum the strings. I always say, you have to bleed a little before you can play the guitar.”

I spent the next six weeks trying my darndest to build calluses on my fingers. But, after eight boxes of bandages and four trips to the hospital emergency room for blood transfusions, I still couldn’t play a single note.

Before long, my guitar instructor was comparing me to the great country musician Chet Atkins.

“Bob,” he’d say, “you’re no Chet Atkins.”

Despite my lack of success, I was still determined to become an accomplished musician. In the years that followed, I tried to learn to play several other instruments, including the harmonica, but I failed every time.

As it turns out, I shouldn’t be ashamed of ineptness because a lack of musical talent is actually a Batz family tradition, like drinking beer and working for General Motors.

As far as I can tell, my wife is the only Batz to ever master a musical instrument.   

  
Sally learned to play the cello when she was in junior high school. Now, at age 69, I'm seriously thinking about taking cello lessons.

If I practice a lot, I figure I'll be ready to play some tunes at family gatherings next Christmas. I'm pretty sure they will love it.

© 2009 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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