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Musician |
Copyright 2008 by Peggy Reiff Miller All rights reserved |
Site by Abbie L. Miller Hosted by WebHostingBuzz |
Peggy Reiff Miller , |
Page updated 6/24/10 |
My musical journey began in the second grade. Mrs. Ramsey, the pastor's wife at the First Brethren Church in Milledgeville, Illinois, led me through the pages of John Thompson's piano course and into a love of the piano that has stayed with me all of my life. |
School opportunities broadened my musical background. My elementary school exposed my class to instrumental music by teaching us to play the "Tonette," a short, plastic, recorder-like instrument. Mine was red. Later, when I got to choose my instrument for band, I chose the trumpet. By junior high, my band director needed percussionists and asked me to switch to drums. So I learned my snare drum paradiddles, flams, and rolls and advanced to the tympani. I loved playing these great copper "kettle drums" that can change pitch with the press of a pedal or sound like thunder with a mighty roll of the mallets. I entered my first State music contest with a tympani solo when I was in the eighth grade. |
Meanwhile, my piano skills didn't go unnoticed. All the classrooms in my elementary school had a piano, and my fifth grade teacher, Mr. Gossard, invited me to play along with my classmates when they sang folk songs. In junior high, I got to accompany the chorus on occasion. Then in high school, I took turns with other pianists accompanying the choir and sang when I wasn't playing. In concert and marching bands, I played percussion and participated in All-County Band and State contests. I thoroughly enjoyed that period of my life. |
When I entered junior high, I needed to find a new piano teacher - a challenge in my small, rural town. I was fortunate to find Lorelei Rocha, who studied in Chicago with the internationally famed pianist Rudolph Ganz. On weekends, she visited her parents and taught lessons in the little town of Chadwick about five miles from my farm. Under Lorelei's tutelage, I advanced through the classics, winning medals at State music contests and performing solos at band and choir concerts through my high school years. |
Some musical diversions along the way included learning to play the accordian while in the sixth grade and attempting to play the guitar in high school. I still have my Lira lady's accordian but rarely play it. I dispensed with my steel-string guitar long ago to save my fingers for the piano. |
To this day I'm puzzled as to why I didn't consider majoring in music in college, given my musical background and the encouragement of my teachers all through school. When I arrived at Manchester College in the fall of 1965, with the exception of a couple of forays into a practice room, I totally abandoned the piano. I didn't pick it up again until after I was married and my husband and I joined the Winter Park Church of the Brethren in Florida. There, I started playing for services and the choir and renewed my skills and love of the instrument. |
When my grandmother died, I inherited a small sum of money and used it in 1975 to purchase a Baldwin studio piano that has been an intimate friend ever since. Piano playing has been a wonderful avocation for me through the years: Singing through my fingers brings joy to my soul. |
Drum quartet for a state contest. I'm the one on the far right with the bass drum. |
Here I am at the top right as an accompanist during my senior year of high school. |
Learning the accordian, above and playing for my neice, at the right. |
Below, a guitar session with some college friends. |
My first student. I taught piano lessons while my daughters were in school. |