Dear Mr. Ritter,
I doubt I ever thought to tell you this before now, but I really am glad you were my teacher.
You were my elementary school music teacher, back when such positions were at least slightly more commonplace than they are now. Not that you got very many perks with that job – as I recall, your “office” was a supply closet and you had to push a wheeled cart full of instruments from classroom to classroom – but you were an actual, recognized, paid staff member.
I’m guessing you didn’t get many strokes from the undisciplined hooligans at Sam Case Elementary, either. We were a bunch of wiggly kids, wearing our mid-’70s plaid bell bottoms and turtlenecks, poking each other and messing with the lyrics of any of the songs you tried to teach us.
But in spite of ourselves, we learned. I received a basic grounding in the language of music from you. You taught us, through clapping rhythms, how to read and count whole, half and quarter notes and rests. You taught us to name the notes on the staff of the treble clef, not with the more commonly-known “Every Good Boy Does Fine,” but, “Empty Garbage Before Dad Flips,” something I taught my own daughter when she started piano lessons.
I sing with the Lebanon Community Chorus these days. A few rehearsals back, the director showed us how to sign the names of the notes: a closed fist for “do,” a flat hand, palm tilted with the wrist down, for “re,” a flat hand, palm facing down, for “mi,” etc. Had anyone seen this before? the director wanted to know.
I had. You taught us. I didn’t forget.
Your classes taught us some of the songs that we lament that kids don’t know today: “Clementine,” “Billy Boy,” “Marching to Pretoria” (which we liked to change to “Astoria”), “Polly Wolly Doodle.” In fact, speaking of old Polly, you’re the one who taught us the window song, which I have now passed on to a new generation. (“Little Miss Muffet, sat on a tuffet, eating her curds and whey … along came a spider and sat down beside her and threw her out the window! The window, the second-story window …” )
These days, most of my musical experiences come from playing the radio, which is the only instrument within my skill set. But as I said, I am singing with the Lebanon Community Chorus (concert next Sunday, 3 p.m. Dec. 5 at First Assembly! You’re invited!), and, poor a sight-reader as I am, what few abilities I’ve got came directly from you, taught to me some 35 years ago.
(Had I paid better attention, maybe I’d be even better, especially when it comes to memorizing Morton Lauridsen’s “Lux Aeterna.” The man goes from 3/4 to 4/4 to 3/5 time on the same page, for crying out loud. And it’s in Latin. And I swear he hates altos.)
School districts always talk a good game about the importance of the arts, even as they eliminate music and drama and art classes in the name of remedial math and more Advanced Placement. I don’t know what happened to you after I moved on to middle school, but I’m guessing you weren’t able to maintain a full-time gig teaching music all the way up through retirement.
My kids had a music teacher for a couple of years, then a dedicated volunteer for a couple more. Their kids? Who knows.
I hope, though, if they’re lucky, they’ll get somebody like you. What you were trying to do with us really did get through, and those memories always make me smile.
With much appreciation,
Jennifer