Tap Dancing
When I was very little, I was like our dogs and cats, owning the garden like our happy, dancing dogs and jumping, smiling cats: “With rings on their fingers, bells on their toes, they shall have music wherever they go!” I remember the cats, smiling at us all, begging to be petted, dancing and jumping around like mad because I was also always jumping around.
Then my mother decided to send me to tap dancing school.
I remember being taken there as a little kid. There were big rooms with large windows, wooden
floors, tap shoes made of black patent leather with taps on both toes and heels, an upright piano and the lady who played it. Phyllis Gershbach and her husband were the owners. And I remember the teachers. And Walter Lezinsky, a tap dancer who was already a good dancer when I got there and he was the lead performer.
The place always smelled like sweat. Satin, sequins, make-up and hair spray were always there for our use.
“Yatti Kati Kitty Kati Koo” was a song that I sang as I headed the Hula line of little girls, all wearing fake grass skirts, colorful tops and leis of flowers.
My tapping was as vigorous as can be for a new learner – until I tried acrobatics. Then then I interviewed for the Circus School. So much for tap dancing!
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How I Learned to Play by Ear
Everything you do is from learned behavior.
When I was a little kid, I heard wonderful music, played by my mother on an old piano in my home.
I had no idea how to repeat the lovely sounds I heard, but I figured out that the sounds were a result of a succession of keys that I pressed that actually sounded like the tune my mom recently played!
And this is how I learned to play by ear.
Caption: Joanne’s mother, playing the piano.