Village Squire, 1978-06, Page 31Home bands
provided fun
for the whole family
BY BERIL
-We all took part in our home band with
rip-roaring enthusiasm. Come Saturday
night our farmhouse. on the outskirts of the
town. was jumping when we seven kids got
our band going with its whanging, clacking
and thrumping.
So long as anyone could hum the tune we
were off and going. Our galloping
renditions of John Phillip Sousa's famous
marches were pure masterpieces. Any
regiment following us would have
overpowered their enemy from sheer force
of speed.
In our band there was the swishing
zum-zum-zum hum from the tissue paper
wrapped once around a comb; accompan-
ied by the rump -rump -rump down the
washboard.
From the rather battered and much -trad-
ed Jew's harp came a zithering throb that
rose and fell in marvelous vibrations.
My brother Nathan got a mouth organ
for Christmas. (we never heard of a
harmonica) This was the classic instrument
of our band. It was the elite. And it entitled
Nat to special solo privileges at which he
was very good. No matter how loud he
played, the ever -blending rhythms came
out smooth and blending.
Bessie tootled the kazoo we'd got out of a
mamoth package of Gusto long -cooking
oats; and just so long as she didn't blow too
hard and blow a hole in the tissue paper in
the vent out a lively beat on the bottom of
an old tin milking pail that had sprung a
leak; I also had an extra role of putting in
the occasional cymbal clash with the pot
lids.
It was our brother Charlie who clacked
out the tempo of our music and kept us
thrumming and tapping along in lively
tempo. Charlie was a master at clacking
the bones. Charlie didn't just play one set
of bones; he played two -a set in each hand.
He put the bones between his fingers, gave
a couple of clackety-clackety-clacks to set
the beat; Bessie would give out with a tune
on her kazoo and we were on our way; and
the longer we played the louder we got.
If we'd been "on the outs" or had "a
head of steam up" against one another
before the band session, we sure got it
worked out of us and we came out feeling
as though we'd had a bath of clean fresh
air, inside and out.
We didn't buy instruments. In the case
of the Jew's harp, Charlie dickered to get
the best of a trade from a kid whose
thusical aspirations or opportunities
weren't as good as ours.
It wasn't that we were poor. That would
have been the highest form of insult and
anyone suggesting such a thing would have
got his nose punched in. It was just that we
didn't have much money.
So long as it didn't cost anything, we
could have it.
Our brother Charlie was the one who
really got the band going. He was the
liveliest one, got about more than the rest
of us, and knew about lots of things the
kids in town were doing. And after he'd
been over to Kitchener with the Farley's in
their new Essex, to see one of those
Sel-Ka-Ton Indian Medicine Shows, he got
us organized and added "new instru-
ments" so that we would be ready when
the Set -Ka -Ton Show hit our town. The fact
that they sold herb medicine that could
cure the heaves in a horse and warts on
your feet, wasn't of much interest to us.
Charlie said, "They put on an amateur
night. They set up a stage and everything.
It's a night when kids can get up and play
any kind of instrument they want, or dance
or sing; and they pay prize money. There's
a prize of SOc."
Well, right there and then we knew we'd
be fools to pass up such a chance.
Dad had a good ear for music and some
Sundays, when he wasn't too tired, he got
out his old fiddle and scromped a tune and
we'd follow along. This way we learned
some of the unusual tunes from "Over
Home."
Providing we ask for something that was
around the farm, our parents were very
co-operative. We added sundry other items
to our band. There was, of course, the
understanding that once the "band"
session was over they be returned to their
intended use.
1 got promoted and was told to play the
saw. Charlie said, "First you got to hold
the wooden handle between your knees.
You tap the saw with a little rubber
hammer. You hold on to the end of the
blade and bend it each time you tap. That
way you make different sounds. It holds
the notes and it's just out of this world."
Well. using a wooden hammer with a
piece of rubber bicycle innertubing tied
around the head of it, and bending the saw
blade sure produced music out of this
world. If I wiggled the end of the saw after
tapping it, the sounds became quavering,
leaving one with a certain queasy feeling.
If I bent the tip up too quickly, the saw
emitted a long-drawn-out howl.
I cannot print what my father said; and
my brothers and sisters almost flattened
me with their battering remarks; so I
,,,PWILere All q,„,
YourGiftsAre!
1
Something to be
cherished for a long time
to come ... plants, salad bowls, cutting
boards, salt & pepper mills, cheese
boards, J.A. Henckels gourmet knives, stain-
less steel flatware, wicker shelf units, chafing
dishes, lead crystal, pottery, Copco cookware,
French chef gourmet cooking dishes, Fieldcrest
towels, copper, wine glasses,
candles, bath accessories, Rosti
plastic products, wood
products, placemats, dried
flowers, etc., etc., etc....
etc.
OPEN:
9:30-6 MON. SAT.
FRI. UNTIL 9
34 North St. [Next door to the Clothes Closet]
Shoppers Square, Goderich
524-8572
11,10.1
asst
VILLAGE SQUIRE/JUNE 1978. PG. 29.