MUSIC, MUSIC, MUSIC

While musical instruments such as piano, organ, guitar and saxophone (in the case of Jonathan) seem to be the popular ones amongst the Tays these days, it was a different story back in the 50s.

Pa (Kung kung)used to play ukelele and violin. Not sure which was the one he started first. I remember he would attend some violin practice sessions at his friends' place, with occasional performance at some functions. During his trip to Bako National Park with us, he even brought along his favourite ukelele.

Uncle Hock ( Er Suk Kung)'s favourite is the accordion. I am not sure where he bought the instrument. The evenings at Carpenter Street would come alive with his pieces that he learnt all by heart(No reading of musical notes). I would sit around him marvelling at this weird instrument that could produce such beautiful tune. I said weird instrument as it is the first one I saw with a keyboard on one end and many black buttons at the other. Between these two ends is the bellows that you have to pull and push in order to draw in then force out the air to generate the music. For those of you who have not seen an accordion, at least you can listen to some pieces on CDs played by the old Irish two-men band Foster and Allen. I only heard about them after coming to Australia. Of course, the accordion is not restricted to Ireland. You could hear accordion music pieces all over Europe, especially when you start to reminisce yourself along old French cobble-stoned sidewalks, in a gondola down the Venice canals (as Marcus and Joanne?) or gulping down a big jug of beer during German Octoberfest.

There was a harmonica occasionally played by Uncle Chin (San Suk Kung) and Uncle Poh (Shi Suk Kung) though I do not know who actually owned it nor could I recall what proper tune came out of it.

What about Auntie Ghim (Ta Gu Poh) and Auntie Hiok (Siow Gu Poh)? They are the only two ladies in the house who managed to learn to play piano/organ and knew how to read notes. That is why they could even teach music when they were teachers in Bako village and 10th Mile primary schools respectively. There was a small,`manual' organ that both aunties practised at Carpenter St. It was about one-third the size of piano and nothing like the sophisticated electronic organs you see these days. You had to press the pedals real hard to generate the tune. I would have gone out of breath then just `pedalling'and doing nothing else, not unlike what people do on their indoor exercising machine. That organ came with us when we moved to Nanas Road.

The first guitar was proudly owned by Ta Ker in the early 60s. After hearing what the Beatles, Elvis and what his good friend Cheng Lim could do with their guitars,Ta Ker decided to buy one using his pocket money. What followed was a ear-breaking and finger-bruising experience in the following few months.....


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