I love teaching one-on-one in particular because I learn what I know and extend what I know. From the time I was 8 to 18 at least, I was immersed in the world of classical violin training. Later, I learned how to play by ear and that changed my life. And we're slowly building a relationship. I've finally gotten her to laugh at some of my antics.

Today we're preparing her for two auditions this next week. One for the Chamber Orchestra and another for the larger youth orchstra. Plus, sightreading and practicing the pieces for her regular school orchestra.

First I play the piece so I know how it goes and where the tricky bits are. Then, she plays it and I ask her what she thinks her strengths and weaknesses are. She has an easier time picking out and voicing her weaknesses more than her strengths.

One thing we're working on is picking up and going on when we mess up. Not stopping ot apologize or expain. Not going through a big re-set business. Just immediate recognition of the error and immediate recovery and going ahead. This strikes me as a good life skill. So much of learning music can be seen as applied character development in this way. She started doing that this afternoon and I praised her for it.

After I play it and she plays it, sometimes we play it together. One of the basic skills is isolating difficult passages and then repeating these over and over again until we can nail them with ease. Yes, practice does make perfect.

Sometimes we clap out the rhythm and then go on to play the rhythm. There's an approximation factor for fast passages as we start slowly and then work up to speed or "a tempo." (One of my favorite things about reading classical music is all the Italian words to see and speak).

It's about the body, I tell her. You do it enough times so the body has muscle memory built in and then the body will do it on its own and your brain won't have to work so hard.

I give her simple exercises she can do while vegging in front of the TV to train her muscles to produce vibrato, that slightly rolling movement that improves a violinist tone. Or, today, we talk about the pinkie finger and having the option to finger a stopped note for the "A" in addition to being able to play an open string.

"I think your little finger needs to be strengthened. Start doing scales on one string and end with the fourth finger, your pinkie. Keep on doing that until you can nail the right intonation every time. Our pinkies are the weakest finger and also the clumsiest. You almost want to feel sorry for it how awkward it is when you try to move it independently. It's wired that way on the hand. Therefore, in order to enable it to do what we're asking it to do, we have to send it to training camp, just like baseball players, you see? When you get a little older, too, your hand will grow some and that will make it easier to get that top note. But you can make your little finger stronger in the meantime. Your typing class you are taking will help, too. Did you notice they've laid out the keyboard so the pinkie is responsible for the least-used letters like Q and Z?"

Tomorrow she'll come back and Pop will teach her "Alabama Jubilee."

Here she shares a brief glimpse of her secret life when this prize-winning author moonlights as a musician.---JGR
____________________

Mara Purl playing Koto

I play the koto---the Japanese harp. I grew up in Tokyo, fell in love with the instrument at a young age, and by the time I was a college student was invited by composer Teiji Ito to help create, and then perform the music for, a Jerome Robbins ballet. The piece is "Watermill"---his autobiography in dance in a very symbolic sense. It's a stunning piece of dance utterly different from what we might imagine a ballet company would perform.

What I could never have imagined is that I'd still perform this upon occasion. The piece is still in the repertory of the New York City Ballet, and was put on their schedule for this May. It was a joy and privilege to be on stage again at Lincoln Center.

But since I last did the piece 11 years ago, my writing career has been my total focus. So it was an interesting challenge to rehearse, then run back to the hotel to complete my next chapter, then perform, then prepare for the next book event, then write, then perform.

I've just returned home to a month's worth of e-mails, mail, deadlines, laundry. But I am vastly enriched by accessing and dwelling in the primordial soup of creativity that this particular musical endeavor required. How it will show up in my writing I don't know. But I know I'm a better artist for it.

And I returned home to the news that my recent novel "Child Secrets" won the Indie Excellence Award, and also the Beach Book Award. I won't need honey in my tea today, as life is sweet enough just at this moment.

Pop's a newsmaker! At 92 he's on a roll! On May 8, 2008 at 11:08PM Telegraph's Stephanie Kiszczak posted her story "The write stuff: Writers’ Club co-founder speaks to students." [See the Riehlife story in post below.]

Now, Dan Brannan, Telegraph Executive Editor, has written a column featuring my father titled "Erwin Thompson gives a gift that will keep on giving" about his donation to the Alton educational sysem music program. In addition to honoring his gift and providing a good platform as a call to action for others to follow his example, it's a darn good profile.

Erwin A. Thompson, singing

Pop says: Years ago my aunts used to say that "All the interesting men are married." And then someone said "That is what makes them nice. Some good woman has influenced them."

If you want to sing this new song SOMEBODY ELSE'S WOMAN, the melody of "I Overlooked An Orchid (while searching for a rose)" works perfectly. [Note: If you go to Rhapsody, you can download "I Overlooked an Orchid" if you don't know the tune.]

Erwin A. Thompson

Orchids
________________________

SOMEBODY ELSE'S WOMAN
by Erwin A. Thompson

1

SHE UNDERSTANDS MY FEELINGS

THE HEARTACHE AND THE LOSS.

SHE DOES EVERYTHING SHE KNOWS

TO MAKE ME SMILE.

YOU'LL ALWAYS FIND MORE "GIVE" THAN TAKE

IN EVERYTHING SHE DOES.

READY TO "GO THE SECOND MILE."

(CHORUS)

BUT SHE'S SOMEBODY ELSE'S WOMAN,

TO ME SHE'S JUST A FRIEND

WHO LIGHTENS UP MY LIFE

FROM DAY TO DAY.

SHE'S GOT A MAN TO SHARE HER LIFE

THAT SUITS HER TO A "T".

SHE LOVES HIM IN THAT SPECIAL WAY

2

I CAN DREAM FOR JUST A MOMENT

THAT THE WORLD IS JUST FOR TWO,

AND WE'LL FIND A LITTLE ISLAND

IN THE SKY.

AND WE'LL SHARE THE FRIENDSHIP

THAT WE'VE KNOWN THROUGHOUT THE YEARS

AND WE'LL SIT AND WATCH THE WORLD GO BY.

------------------------------------------------
I Overlooked An Orchid (while Searching For A Rose)
by Carl Smith

1

The orchid is a flower that blooms so tenderly

To thrill the fairest lady of the land

If placed beside a blushing rose the rose cannot compare

But how was such as I to understand

I overlooked an orchid while searching for a rose

The orchid that I overlooked was you

The rose that I was searching for has proved to be untrue

The orchid now I find my dear was you

2

The rose has lost its color but the orchid is the same

And I'm alone to face these lonely years

I didn't see the orchid I was looking for a rose

And now I pay the price with bitter tears

Cause I overlooked an orchid...

Jimmy Cliff's "Too Many Rivers To Cross" was one of the sound track songs from my time in Botswana and Ghana in the 1970s. There were a lot of rivers to cross, and I learned how to cross them...not all at once, but slowly, and one by one. This also made a great slow dance tune at the end of an evening. Curiously, I recalled the lyric as "So many riviers to cross" and I recall the line "I beg for time."

Too Many Rivers To Cross
Jimmy Cliff

Many rivers to cross
But I can't seem to find my way over
Wandering I am lost
As I travel along the White Cliffs of Dover

Many rivers to cross
And it's only my will that keeps me alive
I've been licked, washed up for years
And I merely survive because of my pride

And this loneliness won't leave me alone
It's such a drag to be on your own
My woman left me and she didn't say why
Well, I guess I'll have to cry

Many rivers to cross
But just where to begin I'm playing for time
There have been times I find myself
Thinking of committing some dreadful crime

Yes, I've got many rivers to cross
But I can't seem to find my way over
Wandering, I am lost
As I travel along the white cliffs of Dover

Yes, I've got many rivers to cross
And I merely survive because of my will.

So, dear readers, what are the rivers that you need and want to cross...both metaphorically and literally?

In 1936, when my father was 21, he wrote a song for Sherman Bowen's younger sister, Lucille, that came to be titled "The Girl in the Little Blue Hat." Lucille was sixteen when he composed the song, but had been perhaps eight-years-old when my father started dancing square dances with her at Ben Hill's dances in his garage. Lucille was a bundle of energy and a lot of fun. A few of the grown-up dancers objected to her being so small, but most of them accepted my father and Lucille on the dance floor with a smile.

Eddie Lock and Bee Lewis helped write the song. My father hadn't considered it seriously, just something he'd put together for fun. He says, "Eddie was helping me work one Saturday, and we got to talking about it as we worked. That evening we were playing music over at Lewis' and Eddie said, 'Play that one we were fooling around with today.'" Thus, "The Girl in the Little Blue Hat" was born as a full-fledged tune. The Bee Lewis music group played it for the centennial of the Godfrey Congregational Church later in 1936.

My father used Lucille Bowen as a model for heroines as the characters of Laurel Rusk and Louisa Ray in his novels "The Home Place," and "The Lean Years," respectively.

My father sang with his children as we grew up. "The Girl in the Little Blue Hat" is part of my heritage. It's a fine little comic song. I only wish you could hear the tune.

This Valentine's week I revived the coquette in the Little Blue Hat with two performances at two St. Louis open mics. I performed the song at the St. Louis Writers Guild Wired Coffee Open Mic to an older crowd on Tuesday night. On Thursday, at the Valentine's Day Massacre at the Royale (which turned out to be a bar, not the fine restaurant it looked like in the website photo!), I shared it with a much younger group of college students and 20-and 30-somethings, and to my delight, they responded as well, chiming in on the chorus:

CHORUS

See that girl! See that girl!
The Girl in the Little Blue Hat?
See that girl! See that girl!
As she looks this way and that?
[major retardando on next two lines for comic effect]
Still we sometimes wonder
Just how much is under
Under the little blue hat! [this line then speeds up]

Curiously, both young women who modeled the hat at the Wired and the Royale share the name '"Julie." They both added to the act by hamming it up quite nicely.

VERSES

1
There is a girl you know quite well,
of every ball she is the Belle.
I saw her, and oh boy I fell
for the girl in the little blue hat!

2
Now this girl, I do declare,
really is a lady fair!
Light blue eyes, and curly hair,
and oh that little blue hat!

3
I asked her if she'd ever been kissed?
She said: "Well now, if you insist: [Spoken with a lot of sassiness!]
I'm sweet sixteen, and never been missed,
under my little blue hat!

It occurred to me during the performance, as I listened, enjoyed, and looked around the room, that Texas allows for Bigness. Texas is comfortable with flamboyance...of dress, speech, and gesture.

MUSICAL WRITING PROMPTS

But, who could write? Their performances were so mesmerizing...and their well-trained voices such a pleasure to listen to, we all sat totally enthralled, munching out cookies.

When the first prompt of "When did you first decide to write and why?" was followed by the lyrics, "If they asked you, I could write a book," I just burst into hearty laughter. "We could write a sonnet on how we met...how to make book lovers of friends."

#2 "My Favorite Things"--What are your favorite things?

#3 Lyric: "Memory all alone in the moonlight" Prompt: Search memory when the muse has escaped through the left ear.

#4 "Sun in the morning and Moon at Night"; Prompt: When you first got married. Things you had and didn't have. Were you satisfied (at the time)?

#5 "My Man" ; Prompt: Men in our lives

#6 "September" ; Prompt: place...time fleeting and passing.

#7 "Lidia: the Tatooed Lady"; Prompt: Who are freaks? What is the circus?

#8 "Broadway Baby"; prompt: How many of you wanted to be on stage? Or: Write about your time on stage. What does it mean to be "on stage"? What does it mean to be in the limelight?

Our holiday spirit is a quiet one...dedicated to continuing to do the things we usually do...and keeping it all on a small, human scale.

Last night was one of those quiet moments as I'm over on the Illinois side, visiting my father. He tutors a family friend, N.; she's at the school where I attended 6th grade, when that school was new. The teacher just Didn't Understand Me.

Last night, though, in the luxury of the one-to-one student-teacher ratio, N. was generously understood and grateful for it. She is a beautifully-mannered young girl trained in "please" and "thank you" under her mother's eye in the same old-fashioned manner my mother's childeren were. She wins my heart with her quiet poise that retains her childhood within it. "She's a doll," Pop says, and it's true.

Her evening with us includes Pop's tutoring time with her...social studies and spelling last night...a simple breakfast-style supper...and a turn on the piano picking out Christmas carols and holiday songs.

Pop has discovered that when they put her spelling words up on the computer and she has to respond by keyboard that she focuses better and does 100 percent better in learning.

At the piano she showed me tunes she learned from her sister and then we went on to learn "Jingle Bells," in the key of C. What I love about teaching is that I always learn something. Last night I learned that the chorus of "Jingle Bells," when played within the key of C lies completely withing the span of that chord---between C and G. What a wonderfully simple song structure, that relies on the rhythm for its zip.

We're playing without music, so N. and I do some ear training as well as just plain old-fashioned practicing. Repetition builds mastery. The ear training is simple. In one method we sing the tune together. Does this next note go up or down? Okay then, that tells you what you need to do with your finger on the piano."

At the end of our session, she's pretty much got it. I run her down the hill in my little car...she reminds me she needs to sit in the back...and with her winning old-fashioned courtesy, as she alights, she thanks me for teaching her to play Jingle Bells.

As a musician, he chose to share two important songs from the time: "Remember Pearl Harbor," and "There's a Star-Spangled Banner Waving Somewhere" (below).

REMBEMBER PEARL HARBOR

Shortly after the attack on December 7, 1941 and America's entry in to the war, one of the first and the most classic World War Two patriotic songs was written by Don Reid and music by Reid and Sammy Kaye.

LET'S REMEMBER PEARL HARBOR,

AS WE GO TO MEET THE FOE!

LET'S REMEMBER PEARL HARBOR,

AS WE DID THE ALAMO!

WE'LL ALWAYS REMEMBER

HOW THEY DIED FOR LIBERTY.

LET'S REMEMBER PEARL HARBOR,

AND GO ON TO VICTORY!

My father is a combat veteran of World War Two. He earned the Combat Infantry Badge and was awarded the puple heart for injuries sustained near Stohlburg, Germany. He also received the Silver Star for "Gallantry in action above the call of duty" in this same contact with the opposing forces.

My father, Erwin A. Thompson, writes:

There are three stories connected with this song that make it far more valuable to me. The first two were general knowledge at the time, but probably have been covered up by the passage of time. The third one is personal.

1. The authors wrote the song for what was then called "country music;" not exactly what is called that today. Contrary to the ambitions of most composers, they wanted it to stay out of the popular music field. The song was so timely that it caught on far beyond the expectations of the authors. The big name bands started playing it. The authors actually tried to stop them!

2. Colin Kelly was a pilot in the Pacific. The Japanese shot his plane, and it burst into flames. Instead of bailing out with at least some hope of rescue he chose to use his burning plane as a weapon. He crashed the Japanese ship and sunk it.

3. I do not claim to have known the man that the song was written about, but it could have been JIM SHEETS. Jim was classified "1 B", which meant that he was non?combatant. He had terrible burn scars on his legs from some childhood accident. He was a corporal in the supply room, Company "C", 62nd Battalion, 13'th Regiment, Camp Robinson, Arkansas.

He felt much the same as the young man in the song. He spent all of his spare time watching the training and the drill; talking to the other non?commissioned officers. He finally convinced the brass that he could make a good field man, and was re-classified "1 A". Jim was a good man to work with and a firm friend. He made a good platoon sergeant. He gave his life for the country that he loved. I am sure that he found that "Star Spangled Banner Waving Somewhere!"

THERE'S A STAR SPANGLED BANNER WAVING SOMEWHERE

By Paul Roberts and Shelby Darnell

1

THERE'S A STAR SPANGLED BANNER WAVING SOMEWHERE

IN A DISTANT LAND, SO MANY MILES AWAY.

ONLY UNCLE SAM'S GREAT HEROES GET TO GO THERE,

WHERE I WISH THAT I COULD ALSO LIVE SOMEDAY.

I'D SEE LINCOLN, CUSTER, WASHINGTON, AND TERRY,

NATHAN HALE, AND COLIN KELLY TOO.

THERE'S A STAR SPANGLED BANNER WAVING SOMEWHERE,

WAVING O'ER THE LAND OF HEROES BRAVE AND TRUE!

2

IN THIS WAR WITH ITS MAD SCHEMES OF DESTRUCTION

OF OUR COUNTRY FAIR AND OUR SWEET LIBERTY,

BY THE MAD DICTATORS, LEADERS OF CORRUPTION

CAN'T THE U. S. USE A MOUNTAIN BOY LIKE ME?

GOD GAVE ME THE RIGHT TO BE A FREE AMERICAN,

AND FOR THAT RIGHT I'D GLADLY DIE.

THERE'S A STAR SPANGLED BANNER WAVING SOMEWHERE,

THAT'S WHERE I WANT TO LIVE WHEN I DIE!

3.

'THOUGH I REALIZE I AM CRIPPLED, THAT IS TRUE SIR,

DO NOT JUDGE MY COURAGE BY MY CRIPPLED LEG.

LET ME SHOW MY UNCLE SAM WHAT I CAN DO, SIR!

LET ME HELP TO TAKE THE AXIX DOWN A PEG!

IF I DO SOME GREAT DEED I WILL BE A HERO,

AND A HERO BRAVE IS WHAT I WANT TO BE.

THERE'S A STAR SPANGLED BANNER WAVING SOMEWHERE,

IN THAT HEAVEN THERE SHOULD BE A PLACE FOR ME!