2025, Family, Kids, Music, Uncategorized

Lessons

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We made a quick trip to Sioux Falls yesterday to stock up on groceries before the horrible winds hit. I don’t think we will need to go back until the New Year. Before we went, though, Husband had a guitar lesson at the local music school that is housed in the former Carnegie Library building. He is very excited about this.

He has had a Taylor guitar for several years, and took guitar lessons as a child. He tried to teach himself over the years, but decided he needed more help. He really likes his teacher, and is relieved to find that he didn’t acquire any bad habits over the years. His teacher is a young man in his 30’s who also teaches ukulele and mandolin and directs two ukulele choirs. The music school is open to all ages, and provides lessons in voice, strings, piano, brass, and woodwinds. His next lesson is in two weeks, and he is working on a French folksong Au Claire de la Lune. It is a duet he will play with his teacher.

My first piano teacher was one of the Holy Sisters who taught out of the local nunnery. I then had a teacher who taught out of her home and was married to the high-school shop teacher. She played piano at our wedding. I haven’t played much over the past several years. Once all the Christmas baking is done and the holidays are over I intend to go back to playing piano again. Husband has some intriguing minimalist Bartok piano pieces I want to try.

Our daughter became quite close to her Bismarck violin teacher who taught her for seven years. Daughter and another Suzuki friend went to visit their old teacher in New Mexico where she and her husband retired. Music lessons have kept them together even after the lessons are over.

What lessons, music or otherwise, did you have as a child? Taking any lessons now? Tell about some memorable teachers.

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36 thoughts on “Lessons”

  1. My first teacher (I think I was 7) lived close enough that I could bike to her home – a friend of my mom’s and I enjoyed her. When she moved away, our church organist gave piano lessons at the church, and she was probably my best teacher, I learned a lot from her.

    Then we moved to Marshalltown, and I had one unmemorable teacher before my mom found Mrs. Schlueter, who was stricter. She was kind of a character – knew her stuff, but not her French – she told me Clair de Lune was about the sea, rather than the moon.

    I quit when in high school… Then before Husband I got married, when I was between jobs, I did take a Paino Pedagogy class and some more lessons, briefly, at MacPhail in Mpls, but I didn’t last at that.

    I never took guitar lessons, which I now kind of regret – just learned chords and a few pick patterns. It’s nice Husband is having such a good time with it, Renee.

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  3. Rise and Learn Your Stuff, Baboons,

    I took knitting lessons from Elie Bornhorst when I was about 10 years old. Actually I did not want to learn to knit, although I was not opposed to the idea. I had just not noticed knitting yet. But as in all things concerning my mother and her child rearing techniques, it was all about her. SHE wanted to learn to knit, so she signed me up for lessons. Mrs. Bornhorst offered lessons to adults, but mom would not do that. Go figure.

    The deal was that I would learn to knit then teach her how to do so. I did that. And as it turned out I liked it. My friends were also in the class, so it was very social, and I enjoyed the process. I knit to this day, and in fact, I have been on a knitting tear lately. I do that in the winter. I also find that knitted materials can be embellished with polymer clay buttons, beads and medallions, so the two are great companion hobbies.

    Mrs. Bornhorst herself was renowned in town for her handwork skills, and she developed a thriving teaching business for sewing and knitting. She was also very kind. And better yet, she had a chihuahua! These dogs were consider vacuous and useless by the general rural population, and there were few of them, so this was a novelty. Her daughter, Debbie, was my age and we played together quite alot until Junior High when our interests changed. She is one of the childhood friends who gather at least yearly. She also is a skilled fiber artist, spending her retirement designing and sewing quilts. Debbie brings samples to show us each gathering. They are impressive.

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  4. Tennis and swimming lessons as a kid. No music lessons other than summer lessons in junior/senior high (taught by the band director). Then trumpet lessons in college at the U. Two years with a MN orchestra trumpeter, then one with David Baldwin.

    I bought a guitar in 2000 or 2001 and took lessons from a local guy here in Owatonna. But I stopped after maybe 2 years. Never got very good.

    Oh, yeah, and a “sort of” lesson I took was to buy the Mavis Bacon learn to type computer program (and booklet) in the late 00s. As with any other skill, use it or lose it. I type my books manuscripts, but it’s intermittent and not every day when I do write. So I get sloppy and careless and am still far from a competent typist after typing perhaps two million words or more in the past 20 years.

    Come to think of it, some of my most concentrated typing activity happens when I’m here, wasting your time reading one of my rambling discourses on the topic of the day. . .

    . . . have you made it this far?

    Congrats! I’m through.

    Chris in Owatonna

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  5. Starting when I was 10 I would spend a couple of weeks every summer with my cousin Carol and her husband on their farm near Pipestone. She taught me to sew. I would bring a pattern and fabric and she took me step by step through the process. She was a good teacher

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  6. I’ve had lots of lessons. I had guitar lessons from nuns when I was eight, and piano lessons when I was thirteen. I had flute lessons when I was fourteen. I had voice lessons in high school and in college. I’m considering online mandolin lessons to learn double stops, but time is a factor.

    I’m considering dog/puppy training lessons for Maggie and me.

    I also had swimming lessons until I was about fourteen, at which point I could out swim the teacher. I became a lifeguard for the boys’ swimming team. There was no swimming team for girls. I wasn’t a fast swimmer, anyway, but I could swim very long distances. It was just ironic that I was the lifeguard for the boys but there was no swimming team available for me.

    More recently I’ve had knitting lessons from a friend, Diane. She has made me a devoted knitter in two years, and I only wish I had learned sooner.

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  7. Y’all have reminded me of other lessons – at school, cello and swimming.

    Tho’ not formal lessons, one summer in the trailer park (I was 10) a young newlywed woman taught me embroidery in a few sessions, in her trailer. That’s a special memory, I kind of idolized her.

    And my best friend and I took lessons at the Singer Sewing Center one summer, as we were taking an adv. science class in lieu of Home Ec.

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  8. My father had a brief stint as a swimming instructor in the Air Force after he had returned to the States from England after WWII and before he was discharged. This was an interesting assignment since he couldn’t swim at all. I have no idea how he managed that.

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  9. I took piano lessons from 4th through 10th grade and again in 12th grade. There were 5 different teachers. I had the first two for one year each – the first died from cancer, the second was useless. I had my third for 3 years and really liked her. The best one by far was number 4, Mrs. Ashley. She was strict but an excellent teacher. When she moved out of state after a year I was in tears. The 5th one used to teach at MacPhail many, many years ago. She thought I could play Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Liszt even though I could barely reach an octave with my tiny hands. I quit before the end of the school year. Everything since then has been self taught.

    I took clarinet lessons starting in 5th grade and played through high school. My hands were too small for a full size guitar so my folks bought me a baritone ukulele. I tired of that quickly.

    I took summer group swimming lessons from beginner through junior life saving. I would have taken senior life saving but I was only 15 that summer and needed to be 16 to pass senior. And the next summer there wasn’t an instructor for senior.

    Other lessons that didn’t stick were baton twirling, knitting, and sewing.

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    2. You remind me of the tapdancing lessons I took as a child. Because I was so tall I was put in the class with girls a year older than I was. It didn’t work very well. I hated it.

      Our son was in ballet and tap for almost 12 years. He was the only boy, and got very little flak for it from his peers. Daughter was in ballet and tap, too. She only lasted until Grade 8. Dance, piano, violin, and French Horn were too much, so we ended the dance lessons.

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  10. One on one lessons with just a teacher and me were limited to piano lessons. I did a couple of years with the woman who was the music teacher at the boarding school. They were private lessons in her lovely home. She had a big black grand piano. I’d walk or roller skate from the school to her house one afternoon a week. She’d usually make me go wash my hands and scrub my fingernails before she’d let me touch her piano.

    I liked her, and think she was a good teacher, I just didn’t have much in the way of interest, motivation or natural musical ability. I also didn’t have anyone to encourage or support my efforts. Of course, no one was interested in listening to me practicing scales, but even when I learned to play Strauss waltzes and Chopin etudes, mom wondered when I’d be able to play the popular songs she was listening to on the radio.

    My last year of piano lessons was with the organist at the Lutheran church in Stubbekøbing. A very nice man with huge hands. After about a year with him, he had the good sense to tell my mother that he thought she could invest her money more wisely; I wasn’t practicing, and I wasn’t practicing because my mother would get angry listening to the same pieces over and over again. It was not an environment conducive to learning.

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  11. I was enrolled in dance classes every winter from I was five until I was sixteen. Started with folk dances, and progressed to ballroom dances of all kinds. Everything from waltzes to polka, fox trot, quick step, and tango and other Latin dances. During my teens the jitterbug, the Lindi hop, and the twist were all the rage.

    When I came to the Twin Cities in 1972 I discovered the Tapestry Folk Dance group by chance. At the time, during the summer they were dancing on Tuesday evenings in front of Coffman Union at the U of M. They welcomed and taught all comers folk dances from all of the world. It was a great group, and I danced with them regularly for about seven years.

    Other classes I have taken (other than required or optional school classes) include classes in typing, shorthand, sewing, and various classes in cooking specific ethnic foods.

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  12. I think I had guitar lessons when I was about 10 yrs old. I think it was just for the summer, as I remember having a guitar, but I have no memory of the lessons or remembering anything from that.
    When I sold the milk cows I bought a five string banjo. I did take some lessons locally, and drove up to Homestead Pickin’ Parlor for a few lessons. I learned some finger rolls.

    Played the trumpet all through Jr and High school. Band lessons there.
    I’ve attended several lighting console programming workshops, those are lessons.
    And I learned an awful lot hanging around Dad and Mom.

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  13. No lessons.
    5th grade we had Mr. Nelson
    A MAN IN THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL!
    We were terrified. Even the boys who had been held back in early grades behaved. A lover of science.

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  14. Growing up with my father was a whole series of lessons, as Ben would agree about farmboy life. I mean serious lessons, some extended over years. Most of the time Looie was quite patient, but not always. My parents refused, with strong assertion, to let us be in band or choir, “so impractical and we had no talent.” I wanted to at least try, but life has proved her right, about the no talent part. Sister Cleo and I have produced children of superior musical skill, but because of our spouses’ genes. My daughter has an intuitive sense of music, a good voice, and is good on flute and piano. Cleo has a son who is a master of bass instruments. Her daughter married into a very musical family and her three children are brilliant at multiple instruments. Her children played in high school jazz band starting in sixth grade.
    You would not think of it this way, but playing a sport is a series of lessons. That’s what practice is, lessons drilled over and over.
    Clyde

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  15. My Sister’s Taking Lessons

    My sister’s taking lessons
    in learning how to sing.
    From everything I’ve heard so far,
    she hasn’t learned a thing.
    It hurts my ears to listen
    when she tries to sing a song….
    For every note that she gets right,
    she gets a dozen wrong.

    Her voice is sort of scratchy,
    and she’s always out of tune.
    I think I’d rather listen
    to an ostrich or baboon.
    Her teacher keeps insisting
    she’s improving every day—
    unless she sounds much better soon
    I’m moving far away.

    – Jack Prelutsky

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  16. My sister and I inherited my aunt’s piano when I was about ten. I don’t remember my first teacher’s name. I walked to her house after school. She made me play Bartok.

    When we moved to another suburb, my sister and I both took lessons with Sister Catherine Cecile at the convent near our house. I loved hanging out at the convent while my sister had her lesson, listening to the nuns chat and smelling whatever they were cooking for dinner. I also loved Sister Catherine Cecile, who was very patient and gentle. No Bartok. When she retired and left the convent, my mother decided we’d had enough piano lessons.

    I took my first swim lessons when we lived up north on a lake. Our neighbor, Mrs. Ostby, gave summer swimming lessons in the lake. The bottom very mucky in that area and my friends would throw mud at each other. When we moved to the Twin Cities I took lessons at a local pool for several years.

    My favorite school teacher was Mr. Mrocek in sixth grade. He was young and had great rapport with kids. We had morning news, where kids would report what they’d learned from the newspaper or TV, and he was able to engage even the most reluctant students. He was the first teacher who encouraged me to write and read my stories to the class.

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