YMAA Chapter 6: Music hath charms to sooth the savage breast.*

As it turns out, my visit to the YMAA Retreat Center was a two way exchange: they shared their facilities and knowledge of qigong and Taijiquan with me, and I in turn brought music into their curriculum.  I made it clear that I was merely a player with no bona fides as a music teacher, but, for whatever reason, Dr. Yang evidently had faith that I would be able to give The Boys music lessons. 
But The Boys were not to be my only students; in younger days
Dr. Yang had played guitar, and sang, and even composed a bit, and was eager to re-engage those long dormant skills, so....

That's Dr. Yang, second from left, at my first music lesson. Jon and Xavier were in attendance, but off camera making lesson copies- and shooting pictures.

There was one song in particular that captivated Dr.Yang, and he practiced it with great focus and patience, a sweet, simple little guitar melody that could be heard wafting softly from his room.  He couldn't remember the name of the song, but was patiently coaxing the complete melody from the memory of his fingers on the strings. Fantastic role modeling for The Boys, and just plain nice to hear. 

I had one guitar and a keyboard with me, and had picked up some basic beginner's lesson books for piano and guitar on my way down from Oceanside, and figured we'd make do sharing  these few tools.  So it was a pleasant surprise to find that Dr. Yang owned a nice little classical guitar we could share; the nylon strings and lower tension of classical style guitars are much easier on tender, unconditioned fingertips than my steel strings would be, and now we had three instruments to work with.  But I needn't have concerned myself; the day after my first lesson, Dr. Yang gave me a one-on-one intensive in ancient Chinese martial shopping technique.  We took the afternoon to drive to Fortuna/Eureka, where we hit two music stores and a pawn shop, some of them twice, and in less than two hours Dr. Yang -on my somewhat nervously delivered reviews of their quality, price and value- had purchased 5 guitars (3 classical style and 2 standard issue flat top style steel string) 5 sets of matching strings, 4 guitar cases, 3 tuning peg winders, song books, straps, strap pegs, electronic tuners and tuning forks, and a nice, used Casio keyboard with lots of bells and whistles.  So at the next lesson...

...everyone had their own guitar to play.  By the end of the first week, the sound of scales, finger drills, and halting shots at House of the Rising Sun, Paint it Black, The Boxer, Sounds of Silence, Greensleeves and Silent Night filled most "quiet" hours.  (I assigned all of the drills and some of those songs, but most were self-selected.  Blows my mind a little that the music I grew up on still carries such value generations later, though I guess I shouldn't be surprised at the stamina of classic values.)  The place literally rang with music, albeit of a raggedy, just learning sort.  But music nonetheless, and this seemed to please Dr. Yang very much, who confided in me that he had not played his guitar in nearly 30 years, and was very glad to rekindle those musical embers, and more importantly, to see The Boys dig into it.  And I gotta say, as a teacher?  It was pretty gratifying.

The final lesson ended with a "works in progress" concert, and true to his word, Dr. Yang gamely -and entirely voluntarily, I would note- took the stage himself to play the now fully recovered if not yet flawlessly executed old tune he'd been practicing with such diligence. 

I also managed, in those last couple days, to coax guitar chords out of two songs Dr. Yang had written many years ago, melodies that a musician friend had arranged and hand-transcribed into piano scores.  So by the time I left, The Boys had been given all the tools needed to learn to read and play both melody and chords, and enough theory so they could read the rhythm of the pieces.  When I return someday, perhaps they will be able to play duets, trios, or even a whole 5 piece band treatment of those two songs, in any combination of piano and guitar they choose. But my primary wish for them is that, no matter what, they just keep playing.

Javier rockin' out.

*Brownie points to whoever can tell me -without googling or wiki-ing- to whom this quote should be attributed.