Memory, music and thanks
For teachers who open doors
Last week in a small singing class I take for fun, we sang the Eriskay Love Lilt, a song from the Hebrides that I first learned in high school choir. I was surprised to find tears in my eyes as I thought of my old teacher, Mr Ball.
He’s long gone now but I wish I’d thanked him. When thirty voices joined together and we got our parts right, it was a great feeling. Because of this, mainly we paid attention. It also helped the music room was set up in shallow rows. In my memory, we were grouped in a semicircle, four deep, with each row rising in a tier toward the back. Passing notes was much more visible than in other classes.
Mr Ball’s choirs won awards. Every year. Each grade, from 8 to 12, had a choir and we performed at different festivals in our city. It must have kept him hopping. Then again, he didn’t have marking to do every night like my mom, who was an English teacher. She was a single mom of four, with no financial help from my dad, who’d left to do his own thing.
It was the swinging 60s, but Mr Ball wore grey suits, white shirts and ties. He had short hair and somehow suggested a beaver without big teeth. He bustled. “Sopranos, try that last bar again,” he’d say. “Up at the end of the line.” He’d dart over to the piano and play it for us. “Watch me for direction.” And he’d give us that direction with vigour and precision.
I had no illusions about being talented, I just really enjoyed singing. My brother and sister both played guitar and we sang at home for hours, everything we knew the words for, starting with old English ballads like, “There lived an old lord by the northern sea, Bow down…” and progressing to Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger and Peter, Paul and Mary.
Mr Ball was a dedicated teacher; he knew a lot of musical history and he did his best to bring alive a passion for music that could be lacking in his fidgety high school classes.
With the benefits of hindsight, I look back and shudder at the idea of teachers having to deal with a snotty student like me. I was a proto-hippie just as that movement was starting, a stick of a girl who weighed 98 pounds with hair down to her waist and non-stop opinions. I’d skipped two grades, read a ridiculously large amount of serious literature, had a vocabulary that could choke a giraffe, and, like most teenagers, I knew everything.
I generously allowed that music was a subject I could learn more of. What was a quarter note? An eighth note? What did two lines at the end of a bar mean? What was a madrigal, a plainsong, and when did a tune become a folksong? The choir sang in Latin, Italian, French, and Gaelic as well as English. From the dizzying vantage point of my two years worth of Latin classes, I was relieved to note that Mr Ball pronounced Latin words correctly.
The part that rattles me now, when I look back, is how judgemental I was. It’s embarrassing. I had unkind opinions on Mr Ball’s suits, his super short hair, and really, those were copycat imitations of what I thought my dad and his cool artist friends would say about my teacher.
One morning when choir was my first period, I wore a new jumper to school. I was proud of it. I had sewed the jumper myself, using two-inch wide rickrack lace from the fabric store for straps and trim on the hem. The rest of it was an old burgundy skirt of my mother’s I’d repurposed. The skirt had been expensive, a burgundy tweed with a raised texture of black thread. It was nice to work with. In sewing terminology, the fabric had a black slub, an uneven thickness.
The term jumper isn’t much used now. It meant a sleeveless dress that a person wore with a long-sleeved shirt or sweater to keep warm. Underneath my jumper, I wore a black turtleneck and black tights. My outfit had cost almost zero money and I thought it looked very cool and Carnaby Street. The lace was a nice touch that showed up well against the black.
Right after choir, I got called to the principal’s office. A teacher had complained about me wearing a too-short skirt. I was upset when I realized Mr Ball must have ratted me out; he was the only teacher I’d seen. My school had a rule about mini-skirts and the number of inches above the knee that were permitted; six inches was allowed, and anything more wasn’t. It sounds ridiculous when I say it now. But I’d sewed my outfit. I knew what was allowed. When the measuring tape came out, I wasn’t sent home.
Years later, I have some sympathy for Mr Ball. When I was teaching, I’d occasionally have university students who wore very low-cut tops. They were always generously endowed young women, and I was embarrassed for them. But then, as a student wearing a mini-skirt, I was covered from my neck down to my toes. The only bare skin I had showing was my face and hands. However, in the early 60s, mini-skirts seemed shocking. Admittedly, I had to be careful when retrieving something from the bottom of my locker; I found a graceful squat worked well.
I still don’t know why Mr Ball didn’t like me. I was a student who came year after year to choir, obviously I enjoyed music, and I turned up at every singing practice. Was it the too-short skirts? Fainting in his class? We had been standing up to sing and I’d felt woozy. I managed to catch Mr Ball’s attention and asked to sit down. He said no, and after a few minutes, I fainted and ended up on the floor.
It was a real collapse, brought on by the gym teacher in my previous class getting us to run laps. As a complete abstainer from exercise and a smoker, running was my idea of hell. Who knew that then standing up to sing could make everything go black? The nurse sent me back with a note to allow me to sit when I asked. I didn’t do it often.
However, as well keeling over and my annoying mini-skirts, one day Mr Ball decided I wasn’t paying attention. It went downhill from there. If I came in the door with five other students, he’d tell me and only me that I needed to be on time. I was surprised; I used to teachers liking me.
Maybe Mr Ball felt I wasn’t serious enough about choir because I didn’t ever compete in the out-of-town festivals. The expenses weren’t huge but I knew how broke my mom was, she’d be giving me money meant for food. I never even told her about those trips. There was no need to make her feel bad.
I tried not to let Mr Ball’s snarking bother me. He was never mean, just grumpy. But it rattled me. Choir was my safe space. The popular kids didn’t take choir and that meant no one was sliding barbed remarks at me. After I’d moved with my family from Ottawa, the cool kids let no opportunity pass to tell me my hair was funny, my clothes were weird and that I had an accent. With variations over the years. Kids in the choir didn’t do that.
At that time, a student could only sign up for one elective per year. In my second year of high school, I tried drama but was surprised at how much I missed singing so I came back. In the end, I sang in Mr Ball’s choir for five years. He picked really good music. We sang chants, rounds, folk melodies, sacred music, lively music, one intricate song after another with lots of variation. The harmonies were so beautiful all of us would go away from the class just giddy.
Singer friends have talked about feeling music in the body. What I experienced was seeing music. Sopranos, altos, basses and tenors were different strands and our voices wove together in the most intricate and ever-changing patterns. To be part of that brought me delight. The magic of sound is primal.
Mr Ball was so highly thought of as a choir director that he was approached by a Vancouver new music composer, Murray Schafer, to ask if his senior choir would be willing to perform the world premiere of Schafer’s latest piece. Schafer was an eminent composer; for the first time ever in my school history, I remember my dad being impressed. In that piece, we worked with strange and dissonant harmonies; the music stretched our imaginations and technical skills. It was really fun.
So farewell, Mr Ball, and thanks for the singing. Being in your classes gave me a musical vocabulary and a lively appreciation of choral forms. Now, on a cold winter evening, I’m able to search on Spotify for exactly the kind of music I feel like hearing to raise my spirits. Tonight, maybe some nice Renaissance madrigals? Followed by motets? Ahh, the sparkly choices.
Even though I recognize that I don’t know that much. Music is a vast hall and I’m just standing at the entryway, listening, absolutely charmed.
Did you manage to thank those one or two teachers in your life who opened a door?
Leslie, that's so sweet you had a great English teacher! What a wonderful thing that you'd dream about the stories at night.
Hello Zoe, Thank you for the enchanting music and the great reminder to say thanks to those who have influenced my life. I've had some fabulous teachers over the years, and I have had some remarkable students who have left their impressions on me as well. Thanks, Zoe, for the trip to the 60s.