The Soundtrack of My Life

I have to admit it.

Most every moment of my waking life has some kind of music playing in the background.

There's never been a time in my memory this wasn't so. Looking at childhood pictures can bring to mind many things - for me the strongest impression is the sound that accompanied me - it was only years later that I realized it was called "music" and helped focus and clarify my tempestuous emotions.

It still does.

I would walk along and sing themes under my breath - sometimes full voice if I knew I was un-observed.  "633 Squadron" was a favorite. I remember seeing the movie at the impressionable age of 8, caught up in a boy's unknowing love of war movies - the story of a fictitious squadron of Lancaster Mosquito bombers sent to blow up a giant rock ledge under which the Nazis had conveniently built a heavy-water factory.

Remember the "Death Star" trench?  George Lucas explicitly stole the sequence.

I also realized, only today, when downloaded to my iPhone, that I'd been singing the main horn part wrong - I'd shifted it one eight note ahead - da DA da DA da da da daa daaaaah - it actually goes DA da da Da da da daa daaaa (ONE two three four five six as opposed to one TWO three four five six ).

No wonder I was such a messed up child.  But I could keep a beat really well.

Melodies from school, Mrs. Johnstone's music class, my trombone book, TV, birds, winds in the trees, pow wow singing, church choir (which, at the old Witt Memorial Indian Methodist Church, only sang melodies - never harmony - but did so in full robes) - wow, especially pow wow songs - all of these kept me going.




The next obsession happened between Elementary ("dear-ear  old Lee-ee, the school for me ...") and Junior High ("Horace Mann, dear old Horace Mann, You're the best school in the land ....").

"The Prisoner" was a summertime replacement for the Jackie Gleason show and still amazes and mystifies people today. The entire show had a strange, cheerful, bright, light-of-day Gothic feel to it and the music, by Ron Grainer (who also wrote "Doctor Who") still evokes mystery, hope and danger in a very British, rock-harpsichord-big band way - and as a budding trombonist, how could I not love his badass low brass writing.

It caught me so much that I made - and wore - a "Village" ID badge, the Pennyfarthing bicycle with a number - on the first day of school. Absolutely no one got it. I realize only now, more than 45 years later, how far that school was beneath me ....

Moving on ....



The 1972 David Wolper production of "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" first caught my eye as a TV production short - a sort of "in production, coming this Fall" advert. I'd never read the Roald Dahl source book, not until undergrad school, but the music, by Bricusse and Newley, caught my ear - and this song, "Pure Imagination" has served as my anthem for decades.

The woodwind 9th chord - when the camera turns to show the Chocolate Room - was so wonderful that, trying to describe to my Junior College friends why I was seeing the movie so often - ultimately I lost count at the 350 mark (back before VCRs and DVD's) - I could only say "there is this incredible "CHORD" right then" - and that became my nickname in the Ultra Sonics performance group I was a player and arranger for.

The final line was a last-minute save by the screenwriter, David Seltzer. A curtain line was needed, the director, Mel Stuart, called Seltzer, vacationing here in Maine, begging him for help. According to legend, Seltzer called back to Munich (where filming was waiting) with the line "You know what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he wanted don't you?" "No", Charlie replies.

"He lived happily ever after". End of film.

Wow.

By now I was into formally writing my own music (I started really composing in 6th grade), listening and playing jazz, early drum corps, string quartets (the Ginastera Quartet #2 was a particular favorite - though hard to sing ...) and my subconscious soundtrack became more understandable.

Now it's often a tango, often of my own writing - though I have to admit "633 Squadron" will serve me well on my morning commute.



So I leave you with Doctor Who - I especially like the 1:30 mark, the "hero/goodguys win" theme, because I think that's what I so desperately need to see myself as.

All this music - so much of it, from so many places - all of it is the steel girderwork that holds up my heart, that braces it and allows the rest of my poor soul to bear up under the thunderous pounding of my feelings and thoughts - otherwise I think I would have flown to unrecoverable pieces before the age of twelve.

More importantly, I have something to share.

If you have a soundtrack, let me know in the comments.

Portland, Maine