My mom bought her Baldwin piano in 1948 with money she inherited from a family member. She always said she’d give it to the first grandchild who expresses interest in piano lessons. It took four grandchildren — the youngest one, too — for that to happen. When my oldest had to pick choir, band or orchestra in sixth grade, she picked choir.

Years later, she regretted her decision. She asked me why didn’t I make her learn an instrument. If I had, she would’ve hated her parents for it and not followed through on practicing.

I chose to take piano lessons when I was eight, the same age as the piano playing grandkid. Yet, I rarely practiced. Do you think a kid forced into music will cooperate and practice when Mom and Dad tell her to?

Anyway, we have the 1946 Baldwin piano in our living room and I’m appreciating it more than I did while growing up. After my son practiced (every day, so far!), I decided to try the lessons in his primer. I played a simple version of Old MacDonald and he sang along while I played. Small moment. Relished every bit.

For years, I remembered how to play two songs: Heart and Soul and Yankee Doodle. I memorized Yankee Doodle for a piano recital and it stuck with me because I’d play it from time to time. Unfortunately, I don’t remember now because I stopped playing it. Heart and Soul is easier and I managed to remember that one. However, I played it backwards. It’s like riding a bicycle. Except instead of hitting the wrong brake, I went backwards.

The same happened with the bike! I had my bike tuned after years of hanging upside down in the garage. When I finally rode it, I had trouble with the gears because I couldn’t remember how to use them.

Practicing makes a difference. It won’t always be like riding a bicycle as witnessed with my inability to help Yankee Doodle Dandy get to town a-riding on a pony. In high school and college, I did plenty of writing like any other student. When I read my old college papers, I recoil. Then I look at my later papers from graduate classes and the writing flows better, but not like today.

One of my writing goals is to use stories more often like Michael Katz does in his email newsletter. It takes time to come up with a story that matches the main idea of an article. But it’ll get easier with … (all together!) practice. Practice turned me into a decent softball player. Practice helped me give stronger speeches. Extra practice helped me land first chair in band. (I reread the band post and flinched. It’s six years old.)

Wanna bet I’ll look at this post five years from now and wince? I hope so, or else I’m not working hard enough to improve my writing.

How has practicing affected your life? What did it help you accomplish? Is there anything you stopped practicing? Will it be like riding a bicycle if you try it again?

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Meryl Evans

Some of you are probably hopping now that it’s April — the first half of the month we all love to dread. But those who celebrate Easter — I hope you take the time to block out taxes.

My son’s first grade teacher played a cute April Fool’s joke on the class. First, she wrote it was Monday, March 32, 2008. Then, she passed out 5th grade work. Man, I wish I saw the looks on those kids’ faces!

Brain food…

• Marketing Your First Book: 9 Tips for Authors: Better yet (on #1), get an audience before you write the book or think about it.
• Why reading your work aloud might be a mistake
• Dear Competitor: Keep faxing and snail mailing away!
• 23 Ways to a Better Feature Press Release: PRs aren’t just about a company’s latest news. Besides, who cares if ABC company won MNO prize?
• Top 10 (or 11) Writers’ Anthems of All Time: Stolen from Yahoo Music Everyone points to the music, but here are links to the lyrics. (I need lyrics to learn a song.)
  1. Every Day I Write The Book – Elvis Costello [Lyrics]
  2. Paperback Writer – Paul McCartney [Lyrics]
  3. Lady Writer – Dire Straits [Lyrics]
  4. Writer’s Minor Holiday – Calexico [Lyrics]
  5. Shadow Stabbing - Cake [Lyrics]
  6. Dancing In The Dark – Bruce Springsteen [Lyrics]
  7. When I Write The Book – Nick Lowe [Lyrics]
  8. There She Goes, My Beautiful World – Nick Cave [Lyrics]
  9. Wrapped Up In Books – Belle and Sebastian [Lyrics]
  10. Screenwriters Blues – Soul Coughing [Lyrics]

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• Marshmallow Peep Art: They just never go away! Seriously, creative use of peeps especially the hilarious pole picture.
• 10 Coolest Decoration Stickers: Not just for kids anymore.
• VH1′s Greatest One Hit Wonders of the ’80s: Enjoy the ride back in the DeLorean However, some bands had legitimate second hits.
• 15 Things You Didn’t Know About the Simpsons: Typo in the infographic #9: “costumes” should be “customs.”
• Top 10 Time Travel Movies: I’m currently reading The Time Traveler’s Wife. Good stuff… dizzying good stuff.
• Geeky Pickup Line Contest:
  • Winner: “I wish I were your derivative so I could lie tangent to your curves.”
  • Runner up: “If I were an enzyme, I’d be DNA helicase so I could unzip your genes.”

• Manta: Database with the profiles of over 40 million companies.
• Best Internet Marketing Posts of 2008 [Link: Jason Falls]: Amazing list.
• How to Write Fast.
• Minimal Web Sites for December.
• 80 Best Lifehacks of 2008.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• Notebook: Amazing animation. Amazing patience.
• Jane Austen Facebook: Humorous phony Facebook page with her characters.
• Tilt Shift Photograph: Are those real or toys?
• Fail Blog: Fail moments in pictures.
• Adtunes: Find music in commercials, soundtracks and more.
• blippr: twitter of reviews. Reviews in 160 characters or less.

Game Music 4 All releases its first free internet compilation. It is called Here Comes a New Challenger. It is a compilation of chiptune, nerdcore, and VG musicians collaborating together as a tribute to video games. Get more info and download the album for free.

Growing up, I loved musicals and songs from the first 40 years of the 20th century. I never talked about it with friends because it wasn’t rock ‘n roll, therefore not cool. I came across foldedspace.org: Twenty mp3s of Great Songs from 1901-1920.

As a kid, I loved singing “Over There” and other oldies like “Camptown Races” found in an old piano book that belonged to my mom. One of my favorite TV specials aired in 1983 and I still have it on tape. It was “Parade of Stars Playing the Palace,” (NOT this one — this one – requires registration) but it focused on The Palace Theater. It had famous singers, dancers, and comedians performing as Al Jolson, Fanny Brice, Mae West, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson played by Gregory Hines, Nora Bayes (who has a few songs listed on foldedspace), and more.

I need to transfer the tape to a DVD before the tape dies. The show already had an interruption in the middle of Al Jolson’s performance because it was a stormy night, which knocked out the cable. I keep hoping a video company will bring it back to life on DVD perhaps the company that produced Broadway’s Lost Treasures. I did exchange emails with the company about this.

What I love about the Broadway Lost Treasures series is its inclusion of performances from various Tony Awards shows (Hey, looks like they came out with part III). I hope the company adds more because there are many other performances I remember from the Tonys that aren’t on those DVDs yet. I did tape and save a few years’ worth of Tony Awards, but unfortunately these were in the later years when there weren’t as many performances and the show cut to two hours.

I didn’t tape this year’s Tonys and of course, Harry Connick, Jr. performs “Hernando’s Hideaway” from The Pajama Game, one of the songs I listen to repeatedly. I also love Mame and All That Jazz.

How do we segue from 1900-1920s music to musicals? Well, “Over There” made me think of George M. Cohan and Yankee Doodle Dandy, and “Parade of 100 Stars” covered the early 1900s and worked its way up to when The Palace reopened for musicals.

The first poem I memorized for school as a second grader was Shel Silverstein’s Captain Hook. Over the years, I repeatedly referred to his poems from the two more famous books The Light in the Attic and Where the Sidewalk Ends. Timeless. Funny. There’s another side of Shel Silverstein that few recognize — his country songs performed by the likes of Loretta Lynn, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Johnny Cash.

Listening to The Best of Shel Silverstein provided a pleasant trip down memory lane for Paul (hubby) and me. It has a nice spread of his poems and songs, covered by a variety of artists from Johnny Cash performing Boy Named Sue at San Quentin to Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show’s funky interpretation of Cover of the Rolling Stone, a song Paul shamefully admits he had forgotten, but sang right along the instant he heard it.

A word of caution to the uninitiated, this CD contains more than his wonderful children’s poems and songs. It includes several of his adult works including Freakin’ At The Freakers’ Ball, which contain themes and language not appropriate for younger listeners. Fans of Shel Silverstein’s aforementioned books won’t get what they expect to get with this CD though many poems from them appear on the track list.

My only complaint is from a technical standpoint in that the recording levels vary greatly from spoken word to the songs. To be able to understand Silverstein as he recites his poems with his whispery voice and elongated “s’es,” I had to considerably turn up the volume … only to be blasted out of my chair when then next selection was a song and I had to turn the volume way back down.

Parents might want to listen to the CD first and then pick out the safe ones for children. However, it’s possible that kids won’t “get” the adult references, but a few bad words pop up. Other than the technical difficulties and the unexpected “grown up” songs, this is CD is a joy and wonderful addition to my album… er… CD collection.

Every now and then I find myself thinking, “Lazy, lazy, lazy, lazy, lazy… Jane. She wants a drink of water, so she waits and wait and waits… for it to rain.”

That and, “Ickle Me, Pickle Me and Tickle Me, too, went for a ride in a flying shoe…”

Title: The Best of Shel Silverstein
Label: Sony
ISBN: B0009YNSKQ
Date: August 2005
Format: CD
Cover Price: USD: $11.98 Amazon: $10.99

Rhino Records has released its 2005 edition of its Totally Hits series. The new edition comes with four #1 songs, which include American Idol #1 Kelly Clarkson’s “Since U Been Gone,” Gavin DeGraw’s “I Don’t Want to Be,” Mario’s “Let Me Love You,” and Ciara’s “1, 2 Step” featuring Missy Elliot. Also on the CD are “Karma” by Alicia Keys, “Truth Is” by American Idol contestant Fantasia, and “Nobody’s Home” by Avril Lavigne.

Since this album focuses on “hits,” on which charts are they considered “hits”? In researching some of the unfamiliar songs, some show up in the top 20 of lesser known or unknown charts.

Two adults and one 11-year-old listened to the music as we all have different tastes. We agree that the collection is geared towards tweens and teens. The adults liked a few of the songs and the rest weren’t their style of music.

The compilation consists of mostly rap and R&B with a couple from the adult contemporary group. It might’ve been a better move to stick to one genre as many listeners might not necessarily like all of the genres on a CD. The kid reviewer wasn’t a fan of the adult contemporary while the adults were, but she liked the rap and R&B songs. The adults weren’t into some of the rap and R&B music. People buy albums because they like most of the songs on it. If they only like half, then it may not attract as many buyers.

The 11-year-old reports that nine of the 20 songs are the winners. Most tweens and teens in the Dallas area listen to a station where most of these songs usually play. The others aren’t as known and people will be less tempted to buy. Not many adults are likely to appreciate this group, but the music attracts many kids from ages 10 to 18.

Title: Totally Hits 2005
Author: Various
Publisher: Rhino Records
ISBN: B0008FPIYU
Date: May 2005
Format: Audio CD
Songs: 20
Price: Cover: USD$18.98 Amazon: $13.99