The three generations, connected by the, jazz drums here, translated…
My father was a conservative, restrained man, enjoyed a quieter, lifestyle, but he'd, loved the jazz drums in music, back in his college days he'd played it in a band. As he'd returned to Chiayi to open up his clinic, there was a musical instrument shop, the "Chia-Music Town", aside from seeing the patients, my father had gone to the store, to beat the drums for fun every now and then, I'd loved tagging along, and, the beats of the drumming, it'd, energized, me so.
Many years later, my father started formerly taking lessons from Mr. Han-Chang Chuang—he'd told me when he was young, he'd only, beaten the drum to the rhythms, didn't learn any of the fundamentals, to get the roots of things down, couldn't read music either, hoped that now that he got the chance, he can, really, take it up, practice the playing skills. The long holiday before I started interning, he'd taken me along for some lessons, and I'd also, fallen in love with how concentrated the hand-eye coordination was, along with the drums, thumping in my heart. As I'd returned to Taipei, I'd taken the lessons with Mr. Yi-Shih Lin for a bit, but because I didn't find enough time to practice, I'd not improved in my playing skills at all, but became, friends with my drumming instructor and his wife. My father took the lessons for a while, and because of the busyness of his own life, he'd, let that go too. And yet, his love for drumming wasn't, diminished one bit, when we'd remodeled our old home, he'd added an extra drumming studio, and put a set of jazz drums in the studio, and he got to shut the doors and the window, go into the studio, then, drum his heart, out.
illustration by the first generation of jazz lovers in the family, courtesy of UDN.com
The kids all inherited the love of rhythmic musical instruments too, and grew up in the learning of the percussion instruments. My eldest son, when he was young, he'd watched the carnival of the symphony of Chiayi performing to the general public on the streets, when he'd come home, he'd, picked up two semi-ring soft plastic mats that were used to keep my laptop elevated on his waist, and took two Sharpies, and started, drumming like a professional drummer then…….and now he's in high school, in the busyness of his weekday academic studies, on the weekends, he'd, found his outlet for all the pent up stress through beating the drums with his youth percussion group; my second son broke his left pinky awhile back playing volleyball in school, had to get the casts on for weeks, but, he'd longed to come back to the band rehearsals in the shortest time possible, because they were in the part of his favorites, the sound of jazz drums; while my youngest daughter still in her studies, but would often pick up the items she had close at hand, and started drumming out the jazzy tempos too.
They'd all loved being in my father's jazz drum studio—even though, for the sake of sound insulation, it's actually, a tiny, cramped, dark space. Because what's inside the studio weren't just the drums, but also the warmth. I'd recalled my younger sister's wedding, my father performed a bit, and, he was like his music, in the disciplined, there's, that love that flowed very deeply, like how he'd, always shown us how much he loved us, in his own, keeping-to-himself sort of ways.
And so, the jazz drums wasn't only an outlet for the excessive pent-up emotions, but how the family members interacted with one another, it's something that they shared an interest in, and this is important, to have something to do with your own loved ones, that way, you will always have something you can, share, to talk about, to have, in common.
No comments:
Post a Comment