163. VIDEO: “Oh, don’t you cry for me”

In elementary school, I invariably caught the ear of every music teacher.  But not in a good way.  She’d slowly walk by the line of singing kids, with her head cocked and with a puzzled, queasy look on her face, and then she’d stop and point at me.  “You just mouth the words,” she’d tell me.  “You be a listener.”  She was a tad brusque, but she wasn’t wrong.  When I didn’t lose the tune altogether, I was always, always flat.  I don’t recall getting similarly gonged off the stage when we played simple percussion instruments, but I suspect I wasn’t much better with those.

Now many decades later, in a horse barn far away, when it comes to finding the (pretty much unmissable) beat of “Oh! Susannah,” I’m still no better than a braying ass.   And this particular ass sets the tone for our musical endeavors quite eloquently when his first gesture is to shove his hi-hat cymbals to the ground.  Nevertheless, I’m game to channel my inner tone-deaf child, and I start up up the music.  

Slowing the song’s pace seems to help us both.  Still, my struggle to give him his cue in advance of the beat, so he has time to lift and drop his hoof on the pedal, looks awkward and sounds worse: