My earliest memory of music… was when I was 3 years old, in my onesie pajamas pounding away on a tinkley toy piano underneath a huge Christmas tree. I remember my mom having a brown wood colored upright piano at the time, and I would put my piano right here next to her’s and play away. I did have another toy piano before that (around 18 months or so), but my first memory of anything was around 3 years old.
me around 18 months old
me around 2 1/2 or 3 years old
When I turned 5, my mother started me on Suzuki violin lessons. Being quite the accomplished violinist herself, she taught me. (Suzuki is a method of learning where you start out by playing everything only by ear. The teacher plays it to the student, and the student plays it back. Eventually you learn to read notes). Later that same year, after having some violin lessons under my belt, my mom then began teaching me to play the piano. By that time, my older brother was also taking lessons for both piano and cello (from my mom).
By the time I reached the 2 nd grade, my brother and I were up at 6:00 in the morning taking turns practicing. Michael would be on the piano for 30 minutes while I was in another room practicing violin, and then we would switch so I would get the piano and he would go practice the cello. And by this time, it was always a fight for who got the piano first. My mom had finally accomplished one of her dreams and purchased a 7 foot concert grand piano. It’s amazing how much more motivation one can have when presented with a shiny new big black piano verses an old wooden tinny upright.
Me around age 5
Me around age 6 or 7
After the grueling morning practice sessions, my mom would load us and our instruments into the car and take us to school where we had orchestra rehearsal at 7:30am before school started. My mom was a volunteer for the school music program and so she would help out with string sectionals – which I thought was so cool at the time. There’s nothing more comforting to a 7 year old than to get to go to school and have your mom there.
Now I don’t remember this at the time, but my mother tells me that I was the only 2nd grader in a 6th grade orchestra, and I was also the concert master. That was news to me – I certainly didn’t remember feeling like the youngest person there. Nor do I remember being the “concert master” (which I’m sure at the time was not really a concert master-ish role).
That's me on the left around 7 yrs old
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