Ground Control to Major Chord

The black and white photograph of my grandfather still sits on the mantel of the big house on Bay View Place. His eyes are looking down, focused on his art, his source of joy and pride and his livelihood: his violin. The long bow hovers in the air above the bridge. His elbow is crooked and ready. Even just looking at the photograph, the viewer anticipates the pure sound of that first note, soon to be released from the strings.

Grandpa learned to play violin as a boy in Vienna. At nineteen he was touring the world with his string quartet. He could play every Bartok and Schoenberg work by heart. By the time I was born, Grandpa was the first violinist in the San Francisco symphony. My father and Grandpa’s other children followed in his footsteps, learning piano or a stringed instrument from the time they could talk.

As the first grandchild in my family, my grandmother had similar aspirations for me. I can still remember the feel of my first violin in my arms. I rested my four-year-old dimpled chin on the cold black chinrest, felt the smooth wood press into my shoulder, and I hated it. My bow screeched painfully over the strings and made me wince. It was an inhuman screech. An unnatural noise that caused listeners physical and emotional pain, like the sound of a tape player eating your favorite mix tape. I looked at my parents with tears in my eyes while the dog hid under the couch.

They convinced Grandma to cancel the lessons after only one month. Due not only to my complaints, but because my parents couldn’t stand the noise of me practicing. Plus, the dog was making a permanent home beneath the living room furniture. Grandma wasn’t happy about the decision to let me quit, but quickly perked up when the family decided to move Aunt Helen’s old upright piano into our living room. Grandma paid for a tuner to fix it up and mom agreed to pay for weekly lessons.

Even with the masking tape on the keys denoting which note they represented, I couldn’t remember which one to play. While I excelled at math and was reading books at least two levels above my grade, I just couldn’t learn to read music.

“It’s easy,” my teacher’s eyes would smile through her thin glasses with unending patience, “Just remember ‘Every Good Boy Does Fine’ for the spaces between the lines – E, G, B, D, F.”

The next time I was trying to play ‘Go Tell Aunt Rhoda’ my brain would conjure up “Every good boy does… well?” Where’s the W key???

She finally lost her patience.

Next I tried Cello. I was eleven by then, too old to be a child prodigy. But Grandma didn’t care. She’d drive me to the lessons, help me lug the giant instrument up the two flights of stairs to my teacher’s apartment and then sit patiently and knit while I mutilated Mozart. I stuck with it for over a year until grandma, with some convincing from my exasperated teacher, decided that I just wasn’t meant to play the cello.

I had complained about the size of the cello, so my parents decided to try something smaller. They called a friend of the family who taught flute. I liked the feel of the smooth keys under my fingers. I like to caress the contours and admire the sheen of the silver in the light. I liked everything about the flute, except playing it. After three lessons, the excitement of the shininess wore off and I was bored. The recorder was no more successful. Nor the harmonica. Nor the tambourine.

By high school, our basement looked like the orchestra pit of the San Francisco symphony when the musicians were on a break. I decided to focus on the only instrument that didn’t require my parents to waste yet another couple hundred bucks at the Berkeley music store: my voice.

To the joy of my parents and grandparents, I joined the school choir. Though the true reason behind my sudden interest in singing was the same as every other freshman at Berkeley High – the annual Choral Competition in Reno every spring. It was rumored that students had no restriction during this weekend away. Older students I knew had drank their first shots, smoked their first bowls and given their first handjobs in the Biggest Little City during previous years’ competitions. Probably in that order.

Unaware of the impending taking of shots, smoking of weed and handing of jobs, my parents happily attended the choir’s winter concert where I attempted to belt out Christmas and Hanukkah spirituals in perfect harmony. I’ll admit it, I wasn’t the world’s greatest singer, but I stayed in the choir until spring, eagerly awaiting the Reno escapades. The weekend turned out to be the Biggest Little Disappointment. I wasn’t cool enough to get invited to the drinking, pot-smoking, handjob parties and instead spent the evenings trying to win stuffed animals at the basketball toss in Circus Circus with my other unpopular girlfriends. Finally the pimply-faced 17-year-old behind the counter felt sorry for us and gave us a giant stuffed Homer Simpson. Not nearly as exciting as a shot of tequila, but we were pleased.

With the choir behind me, I decided to focus on dance. Again, it wasn’t so much because I enjoyed the expression of movement, but more because it meant I got to prance around on stage in a leotard in front of every cute boy in school. My parents came to see all my performances. I can only imagine how surprised they were by the suggestive crawling on stage, the sexy body rolls and the thrusting that made up most of the choreography. All the girls at Berkeley High joined Dance Production for the same boy-related reasons.

While I could thrust and crawl with the rest of them, I had never been formally trained in anything but tap and quickly fell behind the ballerinas and jazz experts in our class. While my classmates sent their dance tapes into the performing arts programs at colleges around the country, I instead decided to pursue writing. A skill that required no musical or rhythmic talent whatsoever.

But even by the time I left for college, I hadn’t completely given up on my musical pursuit. I brought my mom’s old guitar with me on my drive down to UCLA. I had been playing around with it at home over the summer, making up songs for my younger siblings, which entailed learning a few basics out of a book – songs that only required one chord change – and then changing the words for Katie and Tyler. “Katie the magic dragon lived by the sea. And frolicked in the Tyler mist in a land called Audreeeeeeey!” They were young enough at that point to not notice or care that the lyrics made no sense.

In college I started writing songs. Downplaying the fact that I only knew three chords by concocting what I thought to be deep, insightful lyrics. I composed slow love ballads for the cute boys that came into the coffeeshop where I worked:

“Deep brown eyes and hair made of silk.
He bought a cappuccino with nonfat milk.
I gazed into his eyes and they stared back at mine.
I handed him his drink and whispered ‘$2.99.’”

Sitting around playing guitar was popular in the college dorms, but I’d feel inadequate when the self-taught rockers on my floor would bust out favorites by Nirvana and Pearl Jam that they knew by heart. My renditions of Puff the Magic Dragon somehow didn’t measure up. The college boys were less impressed than my siblings when I would include their names in the songs, “Jeremy the magic Dragon lived by the Brad…” I didn’t get laid a lot in college.

Shortly after graduating, I met my boyfriend, Robert. He was a drummer and was happy to encourage my waning musical interest. For my 23rd birthday, he bought me my very first guitar. It was, and still is, one of my most prized possessions: the Big Baby Taylor. Taylor Guitar brand developed the Baby line for kids. And the Big Baby was the perfect size for me. I named it after my boyfriend. Though Robert and I have long since broken up, I still have Big Baby Bobert sitting on a stand in the corner of my Brooklyn apartment.

Having my own sleek and sexy guitar, instead of my mom’s behemoth leftover from the 60’s, I was newly inspired to learn. I started paying for my own lessons and learned my first rock song by heart: ‘Ground Control to Major Tom.’ It wasn’t easy, but I practiced and practiced until I could play that piece almost as well as David Bowie himself. Robert got sick of it very quickly.

“Can’t they teach you anything a little more upbeat?” He’d ask after listening to me drone on about the unfortunate astronaut for an hour every night.

“Commencing count down engines on…” I had to focus hard on the shift from the open G to the barred F minor.

Robert moaned.

“Ground control to Major Robert?” I sung hopefully.

I was driving to Robert’s apartment on a day in early October when I heard the ad on my favorite radio show. Kevin and Bean, the best morning DJs in LA were having a Halloween song contest. Contestants had to write and record an original song and send the CD into the station. Winners would be announced at the end of the month. This was my big chance, I started writing the lyrics that day. I decided to write about the Halloween I most enjoyed: the giant block party in West Hollywood. Like San Francisco’s Castro and New York’s West Village, LA’s gayest neighborhood put on a party to remember every year.

There will be no haunted house, no scary clouds or lighting
But that fat man in the G-string there is equally as frightening
I'll see no jack-o-lanterns, no witches to fear.
But those looking for a trick or treat can surely find both here.
If you’re dressed as Dracula, there’ll be no blood to suck
But if you wanna suck on something else, you just might be in luck.
When the clocks turn back and the wind blows cold, the weather’s autumny
It’s time once again to celebrate and rejoice in sodomy.

For three weeks, I worked on the song every day. Robert, who owned recording equipment for his band, and helped me lay down each track – one for guitar, one for the drum machine, my friend Shawn followed along on bass and I looped my voice over itself to give it some depth. I thought this would be my big musical break. I mean, I rhymed autumny and sodomy – who’s ever done that before? Grandma would be so proud.

I didn’t win. I was crushed. I ceased playing Ground Control for Major Tom for at least two weeks. Eventually, I got over it and was back to instructing Robert to take his protein pills and put his helmet on, but it just wasn’t the same.

It’s now six years later, and I’m still working on my limited guitar skills. I took a music theory class. I’m taking guitar lessons. But as of yet, it seems that the music genes skipped a generation. However, I’ve been working a new skill: rap.

Rap is all about clever lyrics. It requires no reading of music, no playing of notes or chords. Just some beats, some rhymes and some attitude. I got all of those. It might not be the sort of art that my grandparents appreciate. My songs don’t quite compare with the Mozart and Beethoven that Grandpa grew up with. Grandma may not have had this in mind when she started taking me to lessons as a child. But I think I’ve finally found my true calling.