Learning About Music
Within a couple of weeks of my baptism, I attended the mid-week service. I had never been to church on Wednesday night before. Among other things, they were training boys to be songleaders. In reality there were just trying to get them used to standing before the congregation and announcing the number.
A boy would announce the number, and R. M. Pyeatt would then start the song from his seat. When I showed up he asked me if I would lead a song the next Wednesday night. I told him I would. I picked out my song – “The Lilly of the Valley.” I went to the barn and practiced it over and over again. I was determined that he would not start the song for me. I knew how to sing. So when I announced my number I didn’t give anybody a chance to turn to the number. I just started singing. After that I don’t remember him trying to start my songs, even though this was a long time before I was introduced to a pitch pipe. I don’t know if I pitched it in any kind of singable range.
Eventually he asked me to become the regular Sunday Morning songleader, which I did during my senior year of high school. He always waited until I got to church on Sunday morning to ask me to lead singing. After he did this for several Sunday, I arrived early and posted my song numbers on the board. In a few minutes he took them off and informed me that he would be leading singing that morning. I had assumed too much. I learned an important lesson in humility. Strangely enough, I led singing every Sunday after that.
One Sunday our pulpit guest was Don H. Morris, then president of Abilene Christian College. In my mind he had celebrity status. For several months I had been conducting what later came to be called "Pewpackers" on Sunday night. I got the little guys on the front seat and sang song like “The Wise Man Builds His House Upon the Rock” and “This Little Light of Mine.” Don Morris had never seen anything like that, and from that moment on he knew who I was and was anxious to tell people about our first meeting.
Many years later I was invited to an estates and wills conference conducted by the school. I never figured out why I was invited. Everybody else had deep pockets, and they were trying to get them to remember the school when they were planning the disposition of their property following their demise. When he got up to speak, President Morris started by telling of our first meeting.
When I was a freshman in college I took care of his yard. One of my worst nightmares occurred the day I pulled up some of their flowers thinking they were weeds. I was forgiven, however. He graciously congratulated me the night I graduated from college.
To help us learn music, the church conducted singing schools. They were usually conducted every night for about two weeks. We were taught to read music by using shaped notes, which is almost a lost art into today’s world. Each one of the notes in the seven note scale has a different shape. If you learn the shapes, you can read music. I hate it when I see a song book that has all round notes. In the shaped note approach, the round note is “sol” (as in do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-ti-do. Remember The Sound of Music?) In time I learned to sing the shapes. If you could do that, you could sing parts. I did not have a bass voice, but the bass notes were easier, and I tried to sing bass. Later I switched to tenor. Since then I’ve discovered that I’m a baritone. Baritones are a dime a dozen, and they don’t write a part for us (at least not in our hymn books).
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