Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Please, Mr Custer

Dec 09 042

I missed my saxophone while I was away. It’s a huge surprise to a person not a million miles from here that I practise my sax manically everyday. This is because the person not a million miles from here knows that I learned the Spanish guitar, the violin and the double bass at school and I never practised any of them.

Maybe things would have been different if I’d had a big stack of attractive music that I could plunder (belonging to said person) as I do now. But I didn’t. And I loathed the dull exercises with trumped up names masquerading as genuine music that were in all the beginners’ music primers. The thought of a tune that was in them all – Lightly Row – still makes me shudder.

At the moment I’m practising a Gershwin tune called Someone to watch over me, which is so delicious I want to eat it.

Dave asked me why I didn’t buy myself some sheet music that I liked when I was a young teenager, if I hated the music the teacher gave me. But I had no money. And I only had a few records. My first two purchases were Apache by The Shadows, and Please Mr Custer by Charlie Drake. Just imagine, if I had had the music to Please Mr Custer back then, I might have practised obsessively and become a famous violinist.

4 comments:

Marilyn said...

Hi Sue and a very Happy New Year to you and Dave! I am writing to let you know that you have now inspired me to learn to play the clarinet. I can play, in a bit of a rusty way, the piano and recorder but thought the clarinet (which I consider to be a far more 'grown up' instrument than the recorder) would be too difficult to attempt - dare I say it - "at my age". (Oh, yes, I am now wincing at that dreadful phrase!) Having read your posts about learning to play the sax I thought, "I could do it, couldn't I?". 'Someone to watch over me'? I am so in awe - I love all those oldies but goldies of Gershwin, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin et al, and have been humming that tune ever since I read your blog - so thank you very much - I'll let you know how I get on!
(P.S. ‘Please Mr Custer’?)

Sue Hepworth said...

That's great! I'm so pleased!
Good luck!

Anonymous said...

Sue, do you know Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue? My favorite Gershwin piece. It never fails to give me goose-bumps.

Sue Hepworth said...

Yes, but I haven't heard it for ages. I will find it on Youtube now.