Dancing Parrots

 

Well, that was different. Today while playing piano at The Jewish Home, a man visiting his mother brought two parrots. And darn if they didn’t dance along to my music, bobbing their head (more or less) to the beat and occasionally letting out a squawk. I’ve seen a remarkable video of a much smaller parrot singing along to some piano blues (go to Blues Singing Bird on Youtube—well-worth it!), but these seemed to be the dancing variety. 

 

Another treat was an Orff teacher who studied with me some 10-15 years back fulfilling a long-held wish to sing with me at the Home— and she was good! Great scat singing and re-composing melodies and a nice rapport between us as we thoroughly enjoyed the freedom of jazz within the structure of set tunes. 

 

The day before, I played for some 60 residents at the Sequoias Assisted Living Home and though there were no parrots, that also was a sheer delight. From folk songs they remembered from their own childhood to jazz standards, they jumped in with both feet and sang along. I offered a dollar to anyone who could name a familiar jazz tune based on the introductory chorus which  virtually no one knows and darn if one of them didn’t get it! (Tea for Two). Later I asked if anyone wanted to come up and a sing a solo using the microphone and a woman did a lovely rendition of My Funny Valentine while I accompanied her on the piano. In an e-mail with the subject YOU WERE A HUGE HIT!!!, the organizer of the event wrote: “Everyone we have talked to who was present absolutely raved about how much they enjoyed your sing-along. One way to express the impact you had on the audience is that you reawakened the long dormant kindergartener in all of us!”

 

My piano (and organ) teacher Mrs. Lutz could never have predicted where my lessons would lead me, but I couldn’t be happier with where they have. A good lesson that someone without the background, talent, required number of hours of practice to refresh the world through music on the concert stage or in the jazz club can find a place to do so just right for him. I’m so happy that my level of music-making can be of use in the preschool class, the elementary school singing time, the Middle School instrumental ensemble, the neighborhood sing, the hospitals, the Elders’ Homes. Each feeds back into the other, as I bring the re-awakened 5-year-old to the 85-year-old, prepare the 5-year-old for the next 80 years of musical enjoyment. My experiment with teaching teachers in 50 different countries proves what I suspected regarding the universality of the music faculty— all people of all ages in all places with all backgrounds can make and create soul-stirring music and dance.

 

And now I can add parrots to that list.