This article by Ray Spitzenberger first appeared in IMAGES for December 16, 2021, East Bernard Express, East Bernard, Texas.
Having a mother who is a very talented, natural musician becomes a quasi-blessing, as well as a quasi-curse. Especially if her talent is missing from your DNA. Over the years, quite a few instruments met their Waterloo with me.
The very first instrument given me by my mother, not long before the ukulele was placed in my hands, was the harmonica, aka, French harp, aka, mouth organ, aka, Mundharmonika). The French harp (the term my family used for the instrument) was small, easy to carry around, and very popular in America in those days.
Wait! Actually, the first instrument I learned to play was the kazoo! Although in 1938 or 1939, you could buy a kazoo made of thin metal with a membrane inside that vibrates, I played on the homemade version, a comb and tissue paper. You played it by humming a tune through the comb.
In more recent years, as a pastor, I gave each child participating in one of my children’s sermonettes a kazoo (by then, made of plastic), and we hummed “Jesus Loves Me” on it. One of the older members of the church said that our “song” sounded like “sunrise on a guinea farm.”
I share that incident to indicate how the instrument sounded (for those of you like my granddaughters who have never heard one). However, in spite of the squawking sounds they emit, kazoos were often used in jazz bands and were actually played in four-part harmony. In the 1930’s, that is. Not everyone could play a kazoo well.
In contrast to the kazoo, the French harp was quite melodious and could produce some beautiful music, if you were somebody else besides me! My musical Mama should have been able to tell from the beginning that her son was not going to be a Myron Floren.
Perhaps she did realize the obvious, because she never had me graduate to the Ziehharmonika (literally, “pull harmonica”), better known in America as an “accordion.” Although there is another German word for the instrument, — Akkordeon, — Germans prefer to call it a Ziehharmonika.
Actually, Mama didn’t give up on me, because, after a quasi-successful stint with the ukulele, which followed on the heels of the French harp, she provided me with a guitar, from which she expected good results. Didn’t take me long to flop with that one, too, as we moved on to piano lessons, another flop for me. My life in music goes on and on, flop after flop.
Yet, this life journey in music accomplished one good thing, — it caused me to dearly love music, especially folk music and polkas. And it created in me a passionate love for the Ziehharmonika, aka, Akkordeon, aka, accordion, which I never attempted to play. My endeavors were not wasted, as those loves were my rewards. But, man, how I wish I could play the squash box!
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Ray Spitzenberger is a retired WCJC teacher, a retired LCMS pastor, and the author of three books, It Must Be the Noodles, Open Prairies, and Tanka Schoen.