About my musical background.

I first experienced music in my crib singing, which was considered legendary by my family.  My family was a musical family who loved to sing and dance and play their instruments.  My father studied piano and organ until the day he died and my mother was very good on the violin, similar to her young grand daughter, who was very good on her violin, my mother rather gave it up to life, to my grandmother's chagrin.  My mother was never without her violin that she was given at age 10.  It was with her to the day that she died.  "Take it with you."  She would say to me at the end, but I couldn't bare to take it while she lived.

At three I danced Jazz with my brother.  We took from  Leon in a Pasadena, California Dance Studio.
At 8 years old I studied the recorder at public school and in the summer piano, private lessons.
At 10 it was tap dancing at Hollywood Professional School. 
At 12 years of age I studied Ballet with Madam Etienne. Who was in her sixties at the time.
At 13 years I met my friend Beverly Elias who also came from a home of music.  Her father was Lebanese and mother of Jewish descent.  In the evenings we would dance folk dances.  Beverly was studying the Flamenco guitar with an old Spanish man that lived behind our school on Franklin Ave.  I went with her to her lessons with him and she would supplement with added lessons.  She taught me Green Sleeves and House of the Raising Sun.  Eventually we played together and did some performing for our families.   Here we are at Mom's in Malibu, sitting on the patio  strumming away. 

For three years I sang scales with Glenn Raikes.  Then from age 23 to age 28, when my father shipped me the little piano I was singing only religious songs on a weekly basis. The little piano came to us while we were living in the Helman St. house in Ashland, Or.  Olivia was a baby and Jessica was somewhere between kindergarten and the second grade.  After we (Jessica and I) learned the keyboard the way that I am sharing composition in this blog,  Jessica started creating tunes or melodies on the keyboard and writing them out on a score sheet.  Watching her I began to wonder about composers and how they went about writing music.  I would have lived the rest of my life never wondering about them if my girl hadn't written so many lovely tunes!  As an older musician in high school, she went over her early melodies and found them all to written in the key of G major scale.

We moved to the Gresham St. house when Olivia was four years old and Jessica nine or ten.  Both Jessica and I studied piano with Julie Borg for a year or so.  Both girls and myself studied with Virginia Wickham,  Olivia also studied with Jenny and Mrs. Grueling at Lincoln Elementary School.

  Counting time in music is a trick.  We worked ourselves to the 3rd year John Thompson music book. Then we studied violin with Virginia

Eventually, with both girls in school I had the time to return to college.  I had dropped out when I became pregnant with Jessica, in 1970.  My focus was fine art but I squeezed music composition classes in there for about four terms.  I studied with Dr. Belford,  Ellison Glattly and Margaret Evans.  I have composition knowledge up to the fugue, which I love above all others.  But I enjoy that Louisiana sound, having left folk and Flamenco behind, except for on occasion.

I studied violin with Dr. Palmer.


Wendy Schaller (Martin) age16

playing for friends  age 16