September 14, 2009
Ramblings of a Recorder Player: Tribute to Louise McIntosh
Categories: Music
I have a healthy fascination with the recorder as an instrument. No batteries. Portable. Soulful. (Yes.) Quiet instrument. I express my thoughts freely through this instrument.
My musical experience was sculpted primarily by the genius of Ms. Louise McIntosh. What a lady! Such power in her voice, her instruction, her influence! Such grace in her thoughts, her performance, her style.
On a musical level, Ms. McIntosh ensured that all her students understood the basics. Bass and Treble Clefs. E-G-B-D-F. (F-A-C-E; don’t think you’ve got me). Practice. Hold the Recorder like this. Stand up straight, chest up front. Three fingers in your mouth!
Few could match her expressiveness. “One, twooooo… (while your eyes weren’t on her), THREE!” Bet your bottom dollar my eyes were fixed on hers! “Tum-taaa-tum, teee-tum, taaa-tum…” She connoted her musical thoughts in an interesting way – not conventional… but very precise.
She was quite good with children (of our era), in my opinion. Her voice commanded and straightened. Student: “Miss??” Ms. Mac: “What happened now?!” No matter which part of the school I was at the time, this exchange of words meant only one thing… somebody was going to get it. Poor thing. And the sight of Ms. McIntosh “wrong-siding” a recorder brought an immediate chill to the bones. My plan was to get good at the recorder, not for the recorder to get good at me.
Admittedly, I’ve always been daunted by her temperament type; but I never questioned the fact that her reprimands were for my good. And in that spirit, I internalized the deep musical tenets that she expounded.
At Pan Pipers, the recorder was your first instrument. The plan was to put the theory you learned into practice. The recorder was a necessary bridge on your way to playing the more “serious” instruments – like piano, pan, guitar, et cetera. Once you could play D, you could play Yellow Bird. Page 16, Exercise 2, I presume? But somewhere soon after that, the experience was over. On to pan and piano.
I remember thinking, “This isn’t all there is to the Recorder, is it?” One of the best days of my musical life was discovering “Book 2” for Recorder. Oh, the excitement. Though others’ thoughts were far removed from recorder, I boiled that book, and drank the water (a little Trini expression here.)
I further discovered the only copy of “Book 3” that I’ve ever seen in my life (didn’t even know it existed) at my secondary school’s library (QRC). It was then that I made a resolve to play recorder for life. It couldn’t have been mere coincidence.
Musically, I’ve taken the path least trodden. I’m not really interested in “making a CD”, or performing at concerts and the like. Those are not bad things; but it’s not what I want to do. I want to affect persons on a one-on-one basis (or few-on-one), and give them a message of hope. I want to paint a different picture with my music. There is a real need for the message of Salvation. Of budgets, tragedies, crime, promises… I’ve had enough. I’ve taken the free life, given by God.
And in her later years, she accepted God as her Saviour as well.
My music will continue to reflect the excellence that Ms. McIntosh demanded. It will continue to swim upstream of the almost insurmountable odds, as she did in her life. It will illumine lives, just as the excitement of Summer Camps at Pan Pipers illuminated mine. It will continue to be a light in the darkness.
I am indebted to her for the sacrifice that she made to cultivate the next generation of musicians.
As a proud Pan Piper, I’m going to keep on piping.
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