My Musical Family: January 2010

Half Broke Band Directors

I heard a great radio show recently about one of my favorite topics: writing family stories. Kerri Miller, host of Minnesota Public Radio's Midmorning program, interviewed Jeannette Walls on Jan. 20 about her new book, "Half Broke Horses: A True-Life Novel." Here's a link to the podcast: The story after a hardscrabble childhood | Minnesota Public Radio NewsQ.

Walls' first book was the memoir "The Glass Castle," about growing up with nomadic, eccentric parents. Her new book is a story about the life of her maternal grandmother, a spunky, adventurous woman named Lily Casey Smith, who grew up in the early 1900s. Although much of the book contains true family stories and events, Walls had to fill in some gaps in her grandmother's life.

Jan

Carnival Capers at the Capitol

This year's St. Paul Winter Carnival continues through Sunday, and although I'm sure the remaining events will be full of frozen fun, I doubt any will match the wacky escapade from the 1917 Carnival that involved my great-grandfather, G. Oliver Riggs.

First, a bit of background. From 1911 to 1914, Riggs lived in Havre, Montana, where he organized and directed both adult and boys' bands. He also played cornet in the Montana Cowboy Band. Louis W. Hill, the son of railroad magnate James J.

Jan

Picturing Red Lake circa 1946

I don't regularly read the obituaries in the Star Tribune, but the one in Thursday's paper for Monroe Killy caught my eye. Killy, who died Jan. 16 in Edina at age 99, befriended and photographed members of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians, and other Minnesota tribes, in the 1930s and 40s. His photos were published in numerous books on American Indian culture; some photos can be viewed online through the Minnesota Historical Society's photo database.

Jan

Music as Inheritance

As I cleaned off my desk this morning (a much-dreaded but overdue task), I rediscovered an article from Salon.com that I read and printed a few months ago, Is There a Music Gene? I had been pondering that very question when I originally found the article, thinking about how being musical goes back on the Riggs side of my family for multiple generations.

Pictured above is the Crookston (MN) High School Orchestra, in about 1917. My great-grandfather, Director G.

Jan

Music: the Anti-Drug

My great-grandfather, Bandmaster G. Oliver Riggs, ran his own anti-smoking campaign decades before people in the United States began to understand and acknowledge the harmful health effects of using tobacco. Riggs not only warned his own two boys, Ronald and Percy, about the evils of smoking, he passed on this message to all the young men he directed during his lengthy career.

I'd heard this through other sources, but it was reinforced Saturday when I had the pleasure of interviewing Howard J.

Jan

Taken for Granite

Last year, when I was writing an article for AAA Living magazine about New Ulm's historical video podcast walking tour, I heard that St. Cloud had received a grant to create a similar tour. I lost track of the project until last week, when I happened upon the site during a Google search.

I was excited to see that one of the St. Cloud podcasts was about Barden Park - that is, until I watched it and discovered a glaring omission.

Jan

A Little Brain Music

I read this news story online yesterday, Mozart Effect, about a study that showed playing Mozart music to premature babies helped them gain weight faster. The story notes that the researchers didn't try any other music besides Mozart, so it's unclear whether John Philip Sousa or the soundtrack from Glee would have the same effect.

Jan

Practice Makes ... One Grumpy

My youngest child, 9-year-old Elias, has determined that piano practicing is no longer fun. He's been taking piano lessons for more than two years, and he's become disenchanted with the routine. Reading the notes is work. Learning new songs is work. Playing them without any corrections is work. Twenty minutes at the piano goes sooo slowly, compared with 20 minutes at the computer.

That's one reason why I feel it's so important for him to continue.

Jan

Another Use for Tic Tac Candy

I've never played a string instrument, other than a piano. I was a brass player all the way, a French horn player from sixth grade through my second year of college (where I was a proud member of the concert band, pep band and the Drake University Marching Band). So I've learned all kinds of things as my 11-year-old son, Sebastian, pursues his adventures of playing the viola.

Like: violas play in a different clef - not treble or bass, which I'm familiar with, but alto.

My Musical Family

A blog about my family's adventures in making and appreciating music.