My Baby Girl

My baby girl graduated from university a few weeks ago. In a few more weeks she will be getting married. My baby girl isn’t a baby anymore. But she is to me. To me, she will always, always, always be my baby girl.

My daughter is a musician – a very good musician. I could give you a list of the instruments she plays, but it might be faster to list the ones she doesn’t play. She plays a lot of instruments. I went through our house a few years ago and took an inventory of all the instruments “we” own. The word “we” is in quotes because…... well, you’ll see.

 
There was a piano, a clavinova and a keyboard, 3 guitars, a saxophone, a trombone, a clarinet, a flute and all manner of smaller wind powered instruments. And an orange ukelele (don't ask). There were 26 instruments in all. A few of them were mine and a few of them were her brother’s. But, one way or another, they were all hers.

I remember the first time my guitar disappeared. “That’s strange,” I thought. “Where did I leave my guitar?” Then I noticed that my Irish Whistle was missing, too. They weren’t hard to find. I walked into my daughter’s room and asked, “Have you seen my guitar?” She was sitting on her bed playing it at the time. “No,” she replied.

That’s the way it worked in our home. Musical instruments had this mysterious, almost magical, way of migrating down the hall and into my daughter’s room. The clavinova even managed to find its way in there for a while. Thank goodness the piano weighs 700 lbs. I guess instruments just intrinsically know how to find the real musician.

Her favourite instrument is the saxophone. She went to university as a saxophonist and it will be her primary instrument for the rest of her life. But she is also an amazing pianist and I have to confess that the piano is what I like to listen to the best. When she came home from university each summer, she would sit down at the piano and fill the house with music. And I loved it! Her other favourite instrument is the cello. Ironically, the cello is one of the instruments that she doesn’t play (yet). Now that she’s finished university, she will eventually have more time to learn more instruments. I’m sure that a cello will be arriving one of these days.

She has spent the last 5 years studying music and education at Brandon University. Brandon is a small university with one of the most renowned music programs in Canada and a long history of producing outstanding musicians. People have come from all over the world to study music in Brandon.

My daughter graduated with 2 degrees, a Bachelor of Music and a Bachelor of Education. She is going to be a teacher – professionally, at last. She’s already been a teacher for 10 years. She started teaching piano to young children when she was 13. She has the gift.

Today, I find myself thinking about her musical journey – how she got to where she is today.

Over the years, she has studied under many teachers.

There was Bernie. Bernie taught her clarinet and often invited her to come and be a guest musician in his band, the Prairie Red Coats. Playing with Bernie was my first experience seeing her play in public. That was a good thing.

Then there was Ross, one of her saxophone teachers. Ross grew her saxophone skills but he also exposed her to all kinds of new and alternative music. My wife and I had the process all worked out. She would drop our daughter off at Ross’ house for her lesson and then take our son to his music lesson (yes, he’s musical, too). Then I would pick her up on my way home from work. I always went early so that I could listen to them play together and talk to Ross about which “out there” musician he had picked out for her (us) to explore this week. There were some really bizarre musicians that he wanted her to hear. Ross wanted her to understand that, with music, there are no limits.

In high school, she studied sax under Allen Harrington, regarded as one of the top 5 classical saxophonists in the world. Studying under someone of that calibre is guaranteed to push the envelope. One of the reasons that she chose Brandon was to be able to study under another great sax player, Greg Gatien. Greg has been her sax professor for the last 5 years and has had an impact on her that will last for her entire life.

She had some pretty special teachers to help her on her way. But the ones that stand out the most for me are her two piano teachers.

When she started taking piano lessons, we decided that she and I would take them together. It would be a fun father/daughter experience. I had been playing a keyboard, mostly by ear, for years, so I figured I had a reasonable head start. WRONG! She left me behind so fast that you couldn’t even see the dust. After a couple of months, poor dad was relegated to the role of interested bystander, sitting and watching as the musician my daughter would become began to emerge.

We started with a simple keyboard. It was inexpensive and, more importantly, we already owned it. By the 3^rd lesson, a familiar refrain began to emerge. The teacher would tell my daughter to be sure to practice playing both loud and soft and then catch herself and add, “Oh, that’s right. You only have a keyboard. Well, do the best you can.” (Sigh) So we bought the clavinova. It met all the requirements of the time (my daughter was 8!). It had a touch-sensitive, 88-key keyboard and all 3 pedals – soft, sostenuto and sustain. It also met my requirements. It had multiple voices and a splittable keyboard. I liked the fact that I could add strings behind the piano or organ or play strings with one hand and piano with the other. My daughter (the true pianist) never played it as anything but a piano.

Of course, it didn’t take very long before she outgrew the clavinova as well and, since there is nothing that plays or sounds quite like a “real” piano, the clav eventually made way for an acoustic. By this time, it had become clear that music was going to be a major part of the rest of her life so I just considered it an investment in her future. Little did I know…..

I remember one night when we had company over. They had two daughters a little younger than ours and they asked her to play something on the piano. She played Vesuvius by David Lanz. Vesuvius is a challenging piece and it is played quite fast. You don’t really watch the fingers move over the keys. There is just kind of a blur from the wrists down. I watched our friend’s daughters as they watched her play. Their jaws just kept dropping lower and lower. Yep, my baby girl was going to be a musician.

Her first piano teacher gave her great grounding in music but insisted on continuing to teach her children’s songs long after she had mastered them and wanted more challenge. Enter Karen. Karen was her second and last piano teacher. Karen is the reason that she is the pianist that she is today. Nothing was too hard, nothing was out of bounds. If my daughter wanted to try it, Karen was game for the challenge (even teaching Vesuvius to a 15-year-old). I watched the pianist in my daughter blossom under Karen’s guidance.

When she finished high school, we knew that she would be moving away for university and that signaled the end of her piano studies with Karen. Karen had practiced duets with her so she could be her accompanist for her university auditions. For her final piano recital, Karen told her to bring her sax along, too. For the finale, after everyone had finished playing their piano pieces, she brought out her sax and she and Karen played a duet. I had never heard my daughter play her sax while being accompanied by a piano and it was a “Dad moment.” It was quite overwhelming. She sounded so good with the piano behind her. There were dozens of other students and parents there and I tried and tried to maintain my composure. But I couldn’t do it. That was my baby girl making that music and my heart was bursting with pride. When they were done, one of the other fathers came over and asked if that was my daughter. I said yes and he told me that she needed to put out a CD. Nice! I never got your name but, thank you, whoever you are. You made my year.

The other night that I will never forget came halfway through her grade 12 year in high school. She was invited to play with the University of Manitoba Wind Ensemble. The concert was appropriately called The University of Manitoba Wind Ensemble and Invited Guests. Every year the ensemble had a concert and they always invited a small group of promising high school music students to perform with them. That year, my daughter was one of them.

I had been to every band concert and competition that she had played in over the years – from grade 7 right through grade 12. The concerts were always very good and, considering the age and experience of the students, the musicianship was outstanding. But this was different. These were post-secondary students who had chosen to pursue a career in music. They were young adults who were on their way to becoming professionals and this wasn’t just music taken to the next level, it was music taken up many levels. And my baby girl was one of them. Needless to say, that was a pretty emotional night for me, too. We went out for pizza after the concert and one of the songs that had been performed, Lux Aurumque by Eric Whitacre, kept ringing in my head. It is a remarkably beautiful piece of music and they had performed it so well. It just kept playing in my head and, every time it did, it brought tears to my eyes. I love music. Music can be a very emotional thing for me. Music performed in public by my daughter…… well, that’s an emotional thing times ten.

My daughter’s fiancé is also a musician. He has also spent the last 5 years studying to be a music educator. He plays the flute (among other instruments). When they eventually decide to start their own family, I suspect that their children will be musical, too. That will be a good thing….. a very good thing. And grandpa will go to his grandchildren's concerts and listen to them with the same pride that he has listened to his baby girl all these years. He will still get emotional and he will embarrass them the same way that he embarrassed her.

And life will be good.