The Beat of My Own Drum Read Free Page B

a baby, his music must have been like an invisible mobile above my crib—rhythmic, mesmerizing, and soothing.
    Before I had language, I had rhythm. I learned it before I learned my mother tongue.
    I wasn’t just born into an environment with music; I was of music.
    Music shaped my bones.
    Moms danced to it when she was pregnant with me, and then she swayed me in her arms or bounced me on her lap as a baby. As soon as I could coordinate my hand movements I began to copy my father, sitting across from him to imitate his beats on my lap.
    Whatever his right hand would do, my left hand would mimic. Whatever his left hand would do, my right hand would follow. Because of this, I continue to play in a way that leads people to assume I’m left-handed, even though I’m not.
    What began as a child’s imitative play planted the seed for my life’s passion.

3 . Polyrhythm
    Playing two time-signature patterns over the top of each other
Of all earthly music, that which reaches farthest into heaven is the beating of a truly loving heart.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
    T he best thing about music when I was growing up is that it was free—which was just as well, because sometimes Moms and Pops really struggled financially.
    At best, one of Pops’s gigs might earn his band fifty dollars, which they’d split between them. I’d hear my parents whispering late at night and, sure enough, a few days later our latest car would be repossessed—a Mustang or an old white Jag—towed away on a truck while all the neighbors looked on.
    If times were really hard, we’d have to move because my parents couldn’t make the rent. A notice pinned to the front door would mean it was time to pack our bags again.
    Occasionally the lights would go off for a day or two because we couldn’t afford the electricity or because in our neighborhoodthe service was patchy. Whatever the reason, Moms and Pops never gave up on their belief that God would provide, and they turned every setback into an adventure.
    “Let’s try something new!” they’d cry as we stumbled around in the dark. Out came the flashlights and the candles so they could tell us ghost stories or make shadow puppets on the wall.
    We rarely went hungry, although every now and again we’d have to pour water into the milk to make it last. Some nights we only had cereal or sugar on bread for dinner, and Moms would skip a meal. “I’m not hungry,” she’d lie, puffing on one of her Salem cigarettes.
    Occasionally, my brothers and I would go to a house on the corner where, in return for listening to Bible stories, we were fed peanut-butter sandwiches. Sometimes we stole candy from a store. Moms would have spanked us if she ever found out, but all our friends did it, and sometimes our cravings for something sweet got the better of us.
    My favorite candy was an orange flute that you could play and then eat. We also liked Pop Rocks, which fizzed in the mouth, as well as pear-flavored sugar sweets, Twinkies, and 7 Up. There was an orange or red soda we liked called Nehi. We’d drink a little, then pour in half a bag of peanuts to get a combo of sweet and salt. Mostly, though, we just grabbed what we could and ran.
    When times were really hard, we went on welfare. I was sent to the corner store, embarrassed, with food stamps. I felt as if the words I AM POOR were stamped across my forehead.
    Yet there was at least one toy for each of us under a Christmas tree each year, and our stockings always contained a bag of socks, come what may. Moms was a stellar bargain hunter. We had a gift exchange so that each of us would buy one present only, for a few dollars. I went to the ninety-nine-cent store or made things. One year I took some photographs and framed them. Another Christmas when we had no money at all, my brothers and I made a littlehouse out of the Popsicle sticks Moms brought home. She and Pops acted like it was the greatest gift in the world.
    To their eternal credit, our home was always clean,