MELODY MEMORY

As a ninth grade student at Grossmont High School, I was a member of the guitar class.  The choir teacher, Mr. Boucher, taught the beginning students in the main choir room, but Mike Moriaka, a hip young guitar student from San Diego State University, taught the twelve or fifteen intermediate students in one of the private practice studios that were attached.  For one hour a day, I could hang out with other kids who were at the same level as I was on guitar and we spent our time playing our axes and talking about rock and roll and how in ten or fifteen years we would take the music world by storm.  

During one of the songs Mike assigned us, I was paired with another boy named Ken.  Our job was to learn Gordon Lightfoot’s enigmatic ballad “If You Could Read My Mind.”  I had always liked the song, but never quite understood what all the lyrics were getting at.  I was glad for the opportunity to learn the song because I thought, if I could play it, maybe I might get some more insight into what Lightfoot was after.  Mike arranged the song so that Ken would play the rhythm part (i.e., the chords) and I would play the melody (i.e. the individual notes).

At the end of the semester, a recital was planned where the beginning students would play a few of the songs they had been practicing and we would play a few of ours.  Ken and I had made sufficient progress that we were slated to perform our duet at the recital.  As I recall, the recital went well and Ken and I did not embarrass ourselves, but it was hardly an inspired rendering of the tune.  But one day in the practice studio, it was another story.  Everyone was sitting around--talking, noodling around on their guitars, and we were all starting to get to work.  Ken and I took out our guitars and started playing “If You Could Read My Mind.”  

And that’s when it happened. 

Something about how we were playing in that particular room at that particular moment was working.  It was working so well that the talking ceased, the other students stopped playing their guitars, and even Mike stopped taking attendance to watch us play and listen to the song.  Ken and I just kept going—Ken strumming the chords and me picking out the melody.  When the song was over, everyone burst into applause.

I didn’t learn anything more about what Lightfoot was talking about in his song, but it was the only time in my life when the world stopped to listen, simply because of the music I was playing.