Testing: One, Two, Three...

You can't be born into a family named "McCoy" without falling under the enchantment of music. Moonshine aside, one of the greatest gifts given to the Irish is a passion for haunting ballads and lively jigs and reels. Some of my earliest memories are of my dad singing my older sister and I to sleep; I must admit that later in life I was taken aback when I focused on the lyrics to those songs! Murder, mayhem and false-hearted maidens roved through my head as I drifted off to sleep as a child.

My dad played classical guitar, and we had a piano to plink on ~ but the love in my life was singing. My dad has recordings of my sister and I (aged about three and five) and himself singing three-part harmonies a cappella. "Te-ell me whyyyyyyy the sky's so blue..." It thrilled my heart to be a part of the bright beauty of creating.

I was six or seven when my parents bought me my first violin. I don't remember much about it but that I loved the instrument, and I assume I didn't take to it very quickly, because lessons didn't last very long. I began again when I was in grade school, and soon I joined the Heartland Symphony Orchestra. It felt so grand to sit in the music rooms and join in what began as cacophony and gradually built into a rendition of some of the most beautiful music ever composed. I cannot claim I was ever a brilliant violinist, even a very talented one, but I practiced an hour a day for many, many years until I left home.

One of my favorite past times was playing the piano. I took some lessons when I was very young, but when I settled into the violin I tickled the ivories on my own time. And did I play loudly and enthusiastically! To make things worse for my poor, long-suffering parents, I loved nothing better than to make up songs and sing my heart out along with a calliope of chords. Later I added a friend who loved to belt out the harmonies with me.

At some point I received a guitar for Christmas. I was quite proud of it, I thought it was beautiful. But I never really warmed to playing it. I learned ACDE and sometimes F, tossed in a few minor chords here and there, but it just wasn't my thing. At least, not yet.

I was a big time theater enthusiast, and in my mind operettas were even better. Whenever someone asked me what I wanted to do when I graduated, he or she was rewarded with a resounding, "Be on Broadway!" I really thought I'd make it there, although I have never been able to dance a lick, despite years of ballet and tap dance. It was rare to come across me when I wasn't singing ~ whether I knew the words or not.

I went to the College of St. Benedict for one semester and I intended to major in music. But when my violin teacher wouldn't let up in his insistence that I should teach violin myself, I walked away from the violin and many years went by before I picked one up again. I quit school and worked for two and a half years at three different Recordshop stores, advancing from part-time Christmas help to assistant manager. That satisfied my musical yearnings for a long time.

When I was twenty-five, I needed to raise money for a contest I had entered, and the only way I could think of doing that was to learn to play the guitar and start singing! I worked very hard, hours a day, and when I no longer needed to do fundraisers I began to play professionally. I sang by myself or with two of my sisters at first, and eventually branched out and began playing at lodges, resorts and anywhere else that would have me.

When I was in my early twenties, I had written enough songs to record a cassette. Yes, that's how old I am! It was recorded on a reel-to-reel, which eventually was destroyed when my basement flooded years later. I also recorded a CD when I was about thirty. But life had become so busy that I never even sent it out in hopes of getting airtime on the radio.

I played four shows on the Bemidji Public Television station for a program called "Backroads", and opened at the Big Chief Theater for Michael Johnson and Dan seals at one point. I also had the opportunity to sing at the Bluebird Cafe in Nashville, TN. I worked very hard to better my guitar skills and to increase my vocal range. It could be very grueling ~ I began to resent people who continually talked about how 'lucky' I was to get paid to sing and play the guitar. The hours of practice, the back-breaking work of loading, unloading and setting up the equipment and all of the night driving took its toll.

When I was thirty-six, my husband died, and I was left with two young sons. I had a complete breakdown, and what saved me was buying a brand-new Kurtzweil keyboard and playing classical music for countless hours a day. At some point I acquired a violin and began practicing that, too. I played in various bands and performed for a couple of years as a duo with a very talented woman I met somewhere along the way. I also taught piano, violin and beginner's guitar at the music center in our town.

But all good things must come to an end, as the saying goes. I began to develop agoraphobia in approximately 2009, and was becoming less and less able to go out and play. Then a botched surgery cost me my ability to sing ~ I thought it was for good ~ and I quit performing entirely. I had been playing for about twenty-two years, but I just walked away from it. I got rid of my keyboard, guitar and violin and spent the next ten years sitting in an apartment, rarely seeing anyone or leaving for any reason other than to get groceries.

Two years ago I started to wake up and look at my life, and I realized that I did not want to die alone in an ugly apartment in a town I did not want to live in. My sons by then were both living in Minneapolis, and, having lived there myself when I was younger, I remembered how much I loved it. I began making arrangements, and within a few months I was living in the Twin Cities, also. My agoraphobia miraculously melted away, and I found myself ready to begin living again.

I bought a nice-sounding guitar at a thrift store and slowly began relearning some of my old tunes and trying my hand at new ones. What I long for is a violin and a good keyboard...I have really begun to miss the creative challenge. My younger son plays in a band and we have gotten together to practice at times, and we discuss playing in coffee shops when the businesses begin to re-open after the long shut-downs.

I will not kid myself; I'm no longer a young sprout, but I do have plenty of music left in my soul, and with a little luck, someday you may just come across me in a little nook somewhere playing and singing my heart out. Come up and say 'hello' if you do!