The Sound of Music
Theme 1: Prologue
This is a story about growing up with my mom and music.
It’s easier for me to write about distant ancestors than it is to write about people I actually knew. Sometimes I get overwhelmed, partly because I know so much about them. I think: “I can’t include everything, but how can I narrow it down?” Or, “I need photos, dates, and evidence to back up my memories.” Or, “This will open a can of worms.” Or, “Who cares about this, anyway?”
Yes, I have many of the same thoughts that prevent many of you, too, from writing about your families. What do you think inspired me to write my book, What’s a Photo Without the Story? How to Create Your Family Legacy – ?
So this story will be, by definition, imperfect. Imperfect in that it can’t possibly include everything, not even everything having only to do with music and (mostly) limited to a 12-year period of time. It’s a blog post, not a book.
After doing some newspaper research and getting overwhelmed by the number of times my mother was mentioned in conjunction with music, I allowed myself to simply reminisce.
I did not go digging through the family photos, many of which are still in Mom’s Boxes, or sort through my pile of piano music (and hers) for more titles. I did Google a few pieces that came to mind, and have provided links for your listening pleasure. OK, they’re for my listening pleasure, but I hope you enjoy them too!
Maybe there will be more later, but for now there’s this. I encourage you to just start somewhere and write what you know, too. You can add to it later if you want to.
Theme 2: Childhood
Growing up, our house was always full of music, thanks to my mom. At any given moment one could hear Mom playing the piano or marimba; classical or popular records playing on the stereo console; one of us kids practicing an instrument (piano, guitar, violin, clarinet); or Mom giving piano lessons or accompanying a singer rehearsing for a performance.
More than a Minister’s Wife
Most minister’s wives contribute to their church communities by supporting their husbands both publicly and behind the scenes, by planning and hosting events, and by offering aid and guidance to church members. My mom did all that while also being in charge of the music. If we weren’t at home or school, we were likely at church. When my three younger brothers and I were very young we sat in the front row during Sunday services while my dad preached and my mom played the organ. We tried our best to behave and to avoid nodding off. When we were older we, too, participated in youth groups and choirs. In addition to playing the organ, she accompanied various soloists, choirs, and ensembles on the piano. I’m only realizing now that her “Choristers” group was a secular group called The Boise Choristers.
In addition to playing classical, religious, and popular music, Mom liked to improvise. One of her favorite techniques was to play only the black keys. (Huh. I just found a YouTube tutorial about this. But she was doing it 50 years ago.)
The Sound of Music
When I was 8 years old, my mom took me to see The Sound of Music. It was released the same year we moved to Boise, Idaho (1965). It was not only a wonderful, commercially successful, award-winning movie, it was also memorable to me as the first film we’d ever seen together, in a theater, just us girls. So I felt special. Naturally, I think of her whenever the movie or one of its songs comes up, which has been countless times in the subsequent decades! She also took my little Brownie troop and my oldest younger brother to see Mary Poppins (another Julie Andrews musical) while we still lived in Cayuga, Indiana. It was our first movie in a theater!
Bandshell
How many times did our family drive (or walk) down to Julia Davis Park, lay out a picnic blanket, and listen to a community band playing John Philip Sousa marches? Every 4th of July, for sure, but there were other times, and other types of music, as well. I Googled bandshell and was pleasantly surprised to see that the first Wikipedia photo example was our bandshell in Julia Davis Park! (What were the chances of that?) I vaguely remembered there had been a fire, but did not know that it had been restored and renamed for jazz musician Gene Harris. (Here’s an article about its history. And this page shows additional views including one from the grand opening performance in 1928.) I suppose this is where my love of outdoor concerts began.
Piano Lessons
Mom was my first piano teacher. After a couple of years, when we moved from Cayuga to Boise, she signed me up with Mrs. Hoshaw. Probably, if you had asked her, she would have said I had outgrown her capabilities for teaching me. But I think it was also to avoid mother-daughter squabbling. Also, I realize now that there probably were no other piano teachers in Cayuga. (There were no movie theaters, either. She had to drive us to Danville, Illinois for that.) Years later, she taught piano lessons again in our home to supplement her income.
I took lessons between the ages of 6 and 19. My brothers took lessons as well, but only for a few years each. When I was 17, Mom bought a Baldwin grand piano, which was so much nicer than our old upright that it became a pleasure to practice the hour or more a day that my teachers recommended!
Puppet on a String
One summer she bought Blooming Hits, an instrumental album by Paul Mauriat and his orchestra. The album spent five weeks at number one on the charts in 1968. We visited her parents in Albuquerque, and I remember dancing around like marionettes in Grandma’s living room (the only room with a swamp cooler) to the tune “Puppet on a String”. I’m talking Mom, and all of us kids, and maybe even Grandma, briefly. I see now that the whole album was only 26 minutes long, but it was the soundtrack of our summer.
Here are some other things I remember listening to and watching as a kid:
Bunky the Monkey (A 10-minute children’s story with a symphonic background.)
Smothers Brothers — Boil that Cabbage Down (This is a link to a television video clip, but we had the Golden Hits of the Smothers Brothers Vol 2 album.)
Peter and the Wolf (Young People’s Concert: “Young Performers No. 1” / Bernstein · New York Philharmonic. Did you ever watch that series?)
Walt Disney’s Fantasia (We saw the movie in a theater. Here’s an iconic scene: Sorcerer’s Apprentice).
Walt Disney’s Fantasia — The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
Popular Music
My first three albums as a teenager, which I requested and received for Christmas all at the same time, were Carole King — Tapestry; Paul McCartney — Ram; and Gordon Lightfoot — If You Could Read My Mind. So, 1971. And I remember buying Moody Blues — Every Good Boy Deserves Favour with babysitting money as a surprise gift for my mom. We had heard it somewhere and she had loved it. My plan, which worked satisfyingly well, was to just start playing it and see how long it took for her to realize what it was. Then I told her it was hers.
Theme 3: Performances
Festival
For at least six years in a row, I played in the National Federation of Music Clubs (NFMC) Junior Festival. This involved memorizing two pieces (one required, one elective) and playing them for a panel of judges (and a roomful of other students and their parents). It wasn’t a competition with the other students, only an evaluation of one’s own skills and improvement. There was a range of ratings, the top being Superior. For every three Superior ratings, earned in three successive years, I was awarded a Gold Superior certificate. This happened twice. (Nowadays they apparently hand out gold cups instead of certificates.) I say I played “at least six years” because there were also a time or two when I “only” got rated Excellent.
Performances
In addition to Festival, there were piano student recitals of various types, school talent shows, and church performances. Mrs. Hoshaw sometimes took us to retirement homes to play for seniors. During that time my pieces came from Pour Les Enfants, a book I’ve been known to play through, cover to cover, as an adult. It only takes about 12 minutes because I only ever had the first book, pieces 1-12. Not only is it meant for children, the difficulty level is also clearly labeled Very Easy. I was always insulted by that because, at the time, they did not seem very easy to me!
Alexandre Tansman — Pour Les Enfants
Later there were Bach inventions. These two in particular:
Bach — Invention 13 in A Minor
Duets
Mrs. Hoshaw had two pianos in her basement, where she taught lessons. She lived within walking distance of my house. I remember practicing and performing two-piano pieces in recitals with other students. And my mom occasionally convinced me to play duets with her (four hands, one piano), but this is the only one I remember, because it was simple and fun:
Holsinger’s Music
After my youngest brother started school, Mom got a job working at Holsinger’s Music, where she worked for years at both locations. I, too, worked there (downtown) as a teenage stock girl. And my middle younger brother used to help move pianos for them. We all made good use of our employee discounts!
Idaho Statesman 1973
Boise State
Before I finished high school, my parents divorced, and Mom went back to school. She got a degree in Music Education at Boise State University (BSU), having previously graduated from Pacific Bible College in Long Beach, CA, where I was born. (I was born during finals, and she had to take one of her exams in the hospital!)
I, too, was a music major one semester, but it was mostly so my piano lessons would be free. To qualify, I had to take a bunch of other music classes, too, but it was never something I was thinking would be a career. By the same token I was an art major for a semester so I could have a locker in the art building. I only attended BSU for three semesters before taking a year off, moving to California, and eventually studying engineering.
Mom always said I played better than she did technically. She was referring to things like fingering, timing, and articulation. But she far surpassed me in musicality, improvisation, sight reading, composition, and transposition. If you know me today you might think I would have loved the Circle of Fifths, but I hated it. It just never “clicked”. I loved my childhood piano teacher, Mrs. Hoshaw, though. And I took great satisfaction in getting a piece, as she would say, “down to a gnat’s eyebrow”.
At BSU Mom and I had the same piano teacher, but not at the same time. I just found out (by Googling his obituary) that Carroll Meyer performed Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” for the inaugural concert of the Morrison Center of the Performing Arts in 1984.
Morrison Center
The Morrison Center for the Performing Arts wasn’t built until after I moved away from Boise. Prior to that, though, it had to be conceived, designed, approved, and funded. The closest my mom and I ever came to a political discussion was this:
Mom: Don’t forget to vote for the Morrison Center!
Me: I was planning to, but what if I didn’t want to? I can’t believe you are trying to influence my vote!
(Note: Current national politics would be the death of her, if she were still alive to see it.)
Musicals
In addition to regular student recitals and graded performances, Mom participated in theatrical productions like these:
Fiddler on the Roof — I think she was part of the chorus in this one, as was my middle younger brother.
Amahl and the Night Visitors — I don’t remember what she did in this one, but I seem to remember it involving a middle-eastern-ish costume.
Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris — She performed as part of the 5-person orchestra, along with jazz musician Gib Hochstrasser, whom we all knew from working at Holsinger’s Music.
A portion of a glowing review of Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris. Idaho Statesman 1974
Of course we watched all the musicals available to us — on TV, in movie theaters, and (less often) on stage — West Side Story, Brigadoon, Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, The King and I, Godspell, and more. I have not kept up very well, though. For example, I’ve seen Hamilton, but only on TV, and only once. Sorry to disappoint my theater friends!
Theme 4: Young Adulthood
Clavinova
I left home, at age 19-1/2, the day after our church burned down. I swear I had nothing to do with it! And I did not have a piano during most of my young adult life. At one point, though, I owned a Clavinova — a very nice, full-sized keyboard, with 88 weighted keys, plus a matching bench, that looked like a piece of furniture. It also had recording capability.
That year the whole family gathered at my house for Christmas. We all lived in far-flung states and rotated hosting family events. One night Mom played a recital for us. I wanted to record her performance, but she wouldn’t let me. I am still sad about that. She played everything she knew, and she played it well. We didn’t know there wouldn’t be another chance. The performance lives only in our memories. (There are no recordings of me playing either, so there’s that.)
Here are two of my favorites:
Debussy – Claire de Lune (I, too, enjoyed playing this one, mostly after she was gone.)
Rachmaninoff – Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini – 18th Variation (Remember that time travel movie — Somewhere in Time — with Jane Seymour and Christopher Reeve?)
Theme 5: Reprise
Mom’s Piano
When she died, in 2001, my mother left me her Baldwin grand piano. Was I grateful? Yes. Is it sitting in my living room? Yes. Do I play it? Yes and no. Sometimes. Not lately. Never for an audience. Why not? Well, that’s a whole ‘nother story. Maybe I’ll tell it sometime, and maybe I won’t.
I can’t play anything close to as well as I did before I left home. But, in case you’re curious, here’s where I left off in my piano studies:
Brahms – Rhapsody Op. 79 No. 2 in G minor (This was the last piece I played for an audience.)
Chopin – Etude Op. 10 No. 3 (I don’t remember performing this in public, but I played it a lot.)
Oh, I could probably still play the first movements of each, but certainly not the more challenging movements, and not completely by memory like I used to.
Theme 6: Coda
Here’s more — but by no means all there is to know — about my mom:
We Remember (a belated, bare-bones Ancestry memorial including a few photos and an obituary from the Idaho Statesman)
Mom’s Boxes Part 1: The shed (a 9-part blog series)
There are a few stories about her in my book What’s a Photo Without the Story? How to Create Your Family Legacy.
Gifts I Got from Mom (blog post)
That’s all for now.
Thanks for listening!
(I’m already thinking of things I could include but didn’t.)
Was there a “theme” to your life? What was it?
Have you ever tried writing about it? How did it go?
Please share with us in the comments below!
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- Hazel Thornton is an author, genealogist, and retired home and office organizer.
- Book: Hung Jury: The Diary of a Menendez Juror
- Book: What’s a Photo Without the Story? How to Create Your Family Legacy
- Book: Go With the Flow! The Clutter Flow Chart Workbook
- Feel free to link directly to this post! Click here to ask about other uses.
- Copyright 2025 by Hazel Thornton, Organized for Life and Beyond
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Interesting. I also had a musical connection with my mom but it was full of – insecurity, jealousy, and confusion. My mom was very talented. She could play multiple instruments by ear and, with her voice, could have been another Patsy Cline. There was a lot of music in our house, especially on Saturday mornings, when she would get out her accordion in the middle of chores and we (my sisters and I) would gather around and listen and sing. That was the good part. The negative part took me a lot of years to figure out. I was a first soprano and she was an alto. She didn’t instill much confidence in me and I often felt I was doing it “wrong.” It was a strange dynamic but I have good memories, too.
Yeah…families are complicated, aren’t they?
Wow, Hazel, this was colorful and rich, and reminded me of your book, “What’s a Photo Without the Story?” in that it offered something sparky and intriguing at every turn. I delighted in the story about your mom taking her final exam in the hospital while awaiting (or recovering from?) giving birth to you! That’s pretty impressive.
I love all the different musical experiences with your mom that you shared, though I think the favorite was imagining the two of you nestled together in a movie theater, conspiratorially watching The Sound of Music without your father or brothers. This was girl time, like your bandshell picnics, and it’s just so charming imagining the two of you together, even though I didn’t know your mom.
Thank you for sharing all of these stories! I learned so much — about you, about your mom, about the history of your family, about the clavinova (though it sounds like something you made up), and about music.
Mine is not a musical family. My father was tone deaf and hard of hearing from his time in WWII; my sister and mother are rarely on key. My mother’s mother used to joke (or swear?) that she lost her voice with her hysterectomy; and I have been both passably average in school choir and ridiculously off-key at various times. But I have three strong musical memories of my mom, or Paper Mommy, as you know her.
First, we never had a piano until my paternal grandparents went into a nursing home, and when their home was closed down, we got (and refurbished) their beautiful baby grand. The day it was put in the house, my mother, whom I’d never known could play the piano at all, sat down and played an AMAZING rendition of the opening of Guy d’Hardelot & Edward Teschemacher’s “Because” — a super-fancy rendition from the 1800s made famous again in the mid-century by Perry Como. But this was intricate and sounded like a classical piece … which she played from memory for about ten measures and then came to a dead stop. It was all she remembered from when she took piano lessons in the 1940s! It was hysterical, and for all the years to come, even after we got her the sheet music, that introduction was all she could play, impressively but only for a moment.
My second strong music-related memory of my mom is the time we were in temple for the High Holidays. Little kids usually only sat with their parents for a while and then were shunted off to the kids’ service. But at some point, the rabbi was speaking of Jeremiah, and I leaned over to my mother and whispered, “Jeremiah was a bullfrog” and she whispered back, “Was a good friend of mine” and the two of us could not stop giggling and annoyed everyone around us. And finally, my mom’s knowledge of pop music has always been impressive, whether she was in her 30s or now at 89. We always sang along with the radio in the car; she does a pretty impressive Bohemian Rhapsody from memory! Somewhere around 2018, I called her complaining about the presidential administration, and when she answered, I said, “We need a new president. This one is broken.” And without missing a beat, she quoted Lady Gaga and said, “He’s not broken; he was born this way.”
Thank you, Hazel, for sharing your mom’s and your musical memories and for reminding me of my own. What a lovely and special way you have with your stories!
“Jeremiah was a bullfrog” — hahahah! I’m glad you liked my blog post, Julie. And thank you for sharing your own musical mom memories! One correction: The bandshell picnics were not girl time. Thank you for letting me know you thought that though. I’ll go tweak it a little to make it clear.
I love your story, Hazel. My mom didn’t play an instrument, but she loved music. She’d take me to the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra a lot. My parents had symphony tickets, and if my dad was traveling for business, I got to go with her. She’d take me to the “children’s concerts,” where I remember Peter and the Wolf was an annual event. And the times I had to sit in the car with her while she listened to the end of an opera or a movement of a symphony. My mom absolutely instilled a love of music in me. And I was able to reminisce as I read this heartfelt post. I heard Appalachian Spring played live outdoors in Telluride, Colorado, in 1982—before it was a famous place. Somewhere in Time is my favorite movie, and the theme of the Rachmaninoff piece is etched in my mind. I, too, took lessons—but wasn’t very good. But good enough to play the saxophone through college. Thanks for taking me down memory lane with you. xoxo
Thanks, Ellen. I knew you had some musical memories of your own, but I didn’t know they’d overlap mine in so many ways! I’m glad you enjoyed memory lane too.
Hazel, it’s imperfectly perfect! You covered all the right moments that took me back to my childhood. Neither one of my parents played instruments, but there was always music in our home. My dad took so much pride in playing music on his whitewashed oak hi-fi setup. He was so proud of his album collection. I can see him carefully holding the album on its edge to clean it, then gently laying it down and placing the needle with care, then looking up at us to see our reaction. It was as if he were performing magic. It never ceased to amaze us that once the needle hit the 33s, we had an orchestra in our home. Dad played his music loud and liked the idea of cranking it up to make any chore a lot more fun.
Years later, the guy who lived next to us told me, remembering my late father, that he had never seen someone do three things at once like my dad. Watch a baseball game, barbeque, and listen to music all at the same time. Now, when I think of that story, I find it so interesting that it was a neighbor’s memory of my dad. And years later, your post brought all those memories to life. My dad, the music-loving multitasker, and my music teacher, Mr. Green, with his yucky cigar breath, who reprimanded me for not practicing enough. I loved thinking about our paneled rec room with the piano against one wall, the hifi on the other, and the black and white TV to complete the perfect entertainment setup. To this day, music has been an essential healing force in my life. Thank you.
Thanks for letting me know you liked my post, Standolyn, and also for sharing such vivid memories of your own childhood. I can just see (and hear) your rec room. And your father sounds like fun!
This is wonderful stuff, and I find it hard to believe I didn’t know what a big role music had in your life. I have to admit I’m a wee bit jealous, but your memories have brought out quite a few of my own!
When I was in elementary school, they sent home papers to sign up for piano lessons, and I wanted to, but my mother said I couldn’t because we had no piano to practice on. What she didn’t mention is that we probably couldn’t afford the lessons, never mind a piano.
I did own a piano on two occasions in my life. When I was a teenager, my parents and I moved to a new house. The previous owners had a piano in the basement but didn’t want the expense of moving it, so my parents bought it for next to nothing. I taught myself from songbooks, most of which I still have. Then my (now ex-) husband and I bought an old piano at an auction, also for next to nothing. When we split, I had nowhere to put it nor the money to move it, so I sold it to a friend.
So I never got to be a pianist, but I’ve always enjoyed singing, with my family and with various choirs.
Well, you’re not the only one who didn’t know! It’s like when I “came out” as a Menendez Juror. People who knew me back then knew all about it, of course. But when I moved to Albuquerque 20 years ago no one here, or in the professional organizing world, knew anything about me. What was I supposed to do? Introduce myself as: “Hi, I’m Hazel Thornton, the owner of Organized for Life, an ex- Menendez juror, and lapsed pianist” -? LOL. Thanks for sharing your memories, Janet. I’m glad you enjoyed my post and also glad you found singing as a creative outlet!
This is so perfect for me now. I grew up in a family with music. My mother played the piano and a trombone. My father sang in the Naval Choir during WWII and played the trumpet. I’ve been told that I saw “Porgy and Bess” from my stroller when it was preformed outside on the river. Music was often playing in our home. We had a piano in our home and my mother, who was a primary school teacher, had a piano in her classroom that she used every school day with her students.
I had several years of piano lessons but was never very good at it. I did learn to love music though and I knew it was important in life and as part of my education.
I made sure that both of my sons had piano lessons. One did well with them, and one didn’t but both boys went on to be part of the school band. My younger son’s favorite piece was “The Entertainer” and he would often play it on the piano after school. I could always tell how he was feeling by how he played it – either jazzy or soulful.
Now, my younger son has two children – 4 & 7 – and a last year a piano appeared in their home and both children play on it.
Thanks again for helping me remember all of this.
Thanks for sharing your stories, Jonda! I think it’s important to expose children to music regardless of their aptitude. My post, and the responses to it, have me thinking more about the benefits of music. The chief benefit, I think, of playing an instrument is that the more we practice and get better (even if we never even come close to becoming concert performers), the more we feel we CAN practice ANY SKILL and get better at it. Depends on what type of encouragement we receive at the time, too, I suppose.
What beautiful memories! How fortunate you are that music was such a core element and influence in your life. You wrote, “Growing up, our house was always full of music.” Oh, how that resonated with me. I didn’t realize your mom and you were musicians.
My mom was a wonderful pianist and piano and music theory teacher. There was always music in our house- Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin. Students were coming and going. Recitals, jams, and a lot of activity. It was never or rarely quiet. We were taken to many concerts, mostly classical, but others too. They took us to see Peter, Paul, & Mary, and also the Metropolitan Opera.
I studied piano with my mom from the ages of 5 to 7 and then quit. She thought I might like a different instrument, so I studied flute and recorder. Later, I taught myself guitar. I was always in chorus and loved singing. My sister and brother studied with her longer. Eventually, my brother studied cello and then became a composer. My sister continues to play the piano and enjoys playing blues and R&B, in addition to classical music.
You mentioned The Sound of Music. I remember going to it and LOVED the music. That and Mary Poppins, which came out around the same time. My mom bought the music for those movies and we used to sit at the piano together and sing those songs. So sweet memories.
Mom loved music, and in turn, the rest of us did, too. It was a beautiful gift she gave us.
Thank you for sharing your memories, and for helping me to revisit mine.
We have similar memories! Thanks for sharing your stories, Linda!
Hazel, I loved all of your stories about your mom and music! I’m impressed that you are/were such an accomplished pianist. Music was always in my home when I was growing up as well, but my parents did not play instruments (although my father sang in a chorus). Instead, it was classical music either on the radio or on the stereo. Now when I listen to the classical music station, or attend the New York Philharmonic, I hear so many pieces that make me think of my parents.
I was drawn to musical theater at an early age and still participate, either as performer or director. This past spring, I directed “The Sound of Music”, so your blog post title really caught my eye!
I have a piano in my home now. I’ve always wanted to learn how to play but never have. I can read music, thanks to playing clarinet in the junior high school band, so I can plunk out a tune on the piano with one hand if I’m practicing my singing, but that’s about it. I’ve decided that I will get a piano teacher when I retire!
Thanks for sending me down memory lane.
Hi Sharon, it must have been so much fun to direct “The Sound of Music”! Given your background and personality, I think you will LOVE piano lessons. I hope you have a good teacher and report back when the time comes. Thanks for your comment. It’s good to hear from you.