Hi, Richard!  Recently you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:   
      
   RW>  Still remember working in the studio, guy brought in   
   RW>  his own drum kit.  AS I'm wrapping some hardware to   
   RW>  silence its rattles he hits a rack tom right next to   
   RW>  my right ear.     
      
      
             To the ears & the brain focused on subtle nuances the effect is like   
   that of dropping a load of bricks on a scale intended for measuring the weight   
   of a SnailMail letter or a fistful of granola.  Not everyone understands.  :-(   
      
      
      
   [re the jazz lounge piano gig]   
   RW>  Mr. Manager and I had a couple of discussions, and he   
   RW>  found out that my study in college was hotel restaurant   
   RW>  management.  HE asked me why I didn't work in the   
   RW>  industry, and I told him that when I did I found out I   
   RW>  didn't like 7 day weeks, sometimes 12 hour days.  tHen   
   RW>  I pointed it out to him as I'm selling his cashier $100   
   RW>  worth of small bills one night during Mardi Gras, which   
   RW>  came from my tip jug .   
      
      
             Nice work, if you can get it!  Your comments have brought up so many   
   memories of various catering managers etc. I hardly know where to start.  :-))   
      
      
      
   [re different styles of music]   
   RW>  I found there was something from all of it I liked.   
      
      
             Same here.  I might even have realized I liked it sooner if I hadn't   
   been surrounded by people who complained about how they'd had a miserable time   
   at the symphony concert because Bobby Corno played a wrong note in the twelfth   
   bar of the third movement & by people who apparently used AM radio to fill the   
   empty space inside their heads.  I couldn't relate to either or to the general   
   music teacher I had in junior high school, the one who introduced her class to   
   the MOONLIGHT SONATA with the expectation that we'd imagine a bunch of fairies   
   dancing around & draw a picture.  It wasn't until much later that I understood   
   the technical distinctions between absolute music & program music.  But I know   
   now that I'm not alone in enjoying a sonata differently from a ballet....  :-)   
      
      
      
   RW>  being born blind my parents wanted me to get literacy   
   RW>  and other skills that I'd truly need my entire life,   
   RW>  and did it, in spite of the system I hate to say.   
      
      
             Seems to me you & your parents had very clear goals in mind.  That's   
   important when you're dealing with others who have different priorities and/or   
   who think they know better regardless of what's going on in your life....  ;-)   
      
      
      
   RW>  at the period of time I began my education there was   
   RW>  a lot of experimentation going on, not all of it for   
   RW>  the better for the children.  That's another story,   
   RW>  and another thread if anybody's interested >   
      
      
             Yeah.  The idea of the least restrictive environment has its merits,   
   but what often happens is that the school for the blind (e.g.) is closed & the   
   support system we were assured of never materializes... or if it does it's one   
   of the first things to be axed as soon as there's another budget cut.  I could   
   go on at length about that too.  But IMHO there's more to be gained by putting   
   the emphasis on where we've succeeded, despite forces beyond our control.  :-)   
      
      
      
   RW>  A lot of opportunities to learn about various styles   
   RW>  of music, and good ear training.   
      
      
             I imagine as a blind person you would have had to develop your other   
   senses more than sighted people generally do.  When I was growing up it seemed   
   to be taken for granted that Mother Nature endows blind people with supersonic   
   hearing... but you worked at it, just as I did.  By the time our daughter came   
   along I was ready, willing, and able to learn that a 20% elevation in the rate   
   of a child's breathing may... in the absence of any obvious reason... indicate   
   s/he has a fever.  To a musician a 20% increase in tempo is quite significant.   
   To a lot of non-musicians, however, it seems like a black art even if they can   
   see the wall clock nearby measuring the elapsed time in seconds... [wry grin].   
      
      
      
      
   --- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+   
    * Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)