Confessions of a Caregiver: Teammates to the Fore 1

John and I were an amazing team prior to the stroke. As professional musicians we performed together, wrote music together and commuted to gigs together as needed. This professional teamwork added a level of splendiferous joy to our marriage.  Not only were we professional teammates, we considered ourselves soul mates on the personal level. All the stars had lined up for us when we found each other and fell in love.

In our burgeoning business as composers, John and I often collaborated on works that we needed for upcoming recording sessions or other performances. We would put the score on the piano and leave it open. Whomever walked by added the next needed parts of the arrangement as time permitted.

I recall three specific projects where this technique was used. The first was while we were living in the Miami, Florida area. We had been hired to do the arrangements for that ancient technology: the vinyl record album. It was being recorded by a spiritual singer. I believe this would have been in 1982, definitely the pre-compact disc era. The young lady had hired another arranger to do the eleven songs on the album but for some reason which I can no longer recall, he had had to back out of the assignment. We got a panic call and had one week to do the arrangements for strings, brass, a couple of woodwinds, piano, and percussion. This was the first time we ever collaborated on the same works. We had no choice: this was a lot of music to arrange and prepare for the recording session in seven days.

We threw ourselves into the task and there was staff paper, pencils, and erasers spread all over the piano. Our living room looked like the aftermath of a ticker tape parade with larger pieces of paper as these items spilled onto the surrounding floor and copying tables. Whomever was home at the time commandeered the piano and pencils. Whomever walked by later, assessed the progress and continued.

In one week, we both performed on the recording session. Two copies of the vinyl album entitled “Songs of Joy and Praise” sung by Mary Anne Kigar stand proudly, but nearly forgotten on the bookshelves in our home with other vinyl skeletons.

 2014 Nancy Weckwerth