Hi, Richard!  Awhile ago you wrote in a message to James Bradley:

JB>  I can find me a wife without a day-gig that can
JB>  tickle the ivories. I just can't imagine what *that*
JB>  eHarmony add would look like. 

RW>  HEy, I wanted a wife with good vocal chops,


         Ah.  I'm reminded there of the adage "Be careful what you wish for...
you might get it!"  If you were performing more often in those days (and doing
less sound work) than you are nowadays having a spouse who could double as the
vocalist in the band may have seemed convenient.  Unfortunately, however, when
people seek a mate who has certain characteristics they tend to overlook a few
details.  If you wanted Ella Fitzgerald & got Beverly Sills your wife may have
felt like a fish out of water no matter how hard both of you tried to make the
relationship work.  A common interest in music can add a dimension which might
not be achievable otherwise.  That's certainly the case with Dallas & me.  But
what worked in our case sounds a lot more like Daryl's experience with Janice.
Neither of us was looking for a mate at the time we met.  We had both accepted
the idea that nobody would want to marry *us* because we were too weird.  Then
in time we realized there was something quite unique going on between us.  :-)



RW>  got one, master's in vocal music.


         Classically trained, I would imagine....



RW>  had to teach her hat to scat sing though.  USed to
RW>  write out her scat parts to be honest.


         Scat singing, eh??  A usually reliable source tells me Frankie Lounge
Lizard did that in a recording session the morning after the night before when
he couldn't remember the words to a song he made famous....  Q-)

         Different people have different styles of learning & of making music.
As it happens I had a clarinet teacher who gave me sight work at every lesson.
But in case some symphony musicians may be lurking in this echo, I feel I must
specify that he wanted me to play pieces for him which I'd never seen or heard
before.  Dallas & I lived in a world where it was quite usual to have somebody
ask a dance band to play their favourite song, where the ink was barely dry on
yet another item pit musicians in an off-Broadway tryout might receive moments
before curtain time, and where band teachers attended "summer reading clinics"
in which they'd run through a music publisher's most recent offerings together
with other teachers & with whoever else expressed an interest in joining them.
Symphony musicians and/or music faculty types, according to an article written
just a few days ago by such a person, don't sight read even in rehearsal... or
they think of sight reading as what real musicians do after having a chance to
"look over" the music for a week at home!  Whatever your ex's innate abilities
may have been, I reckon spontaneity (e.g. scat singing) probably wasn't valued
in the environment where she received her training & she found it difficult to
expand her professional horizons later even when she very much wanted to.

         JFTR... I'm a reader by training & by inclination.  I'll take on just
about anything I can see in print.  One of the things which interests me about
concert band & about playing the clarinet is the variety of music I'm expected
to take in stride.  What I find difficult to understand is why other folks get
uptight when they encounter some combination of notes they're unfamiliar with.
They seem quite capable of reading a newspaper.  So what's the big deal??  :-)



RW>  We lasted 9 years, then she wanted a divorce


         My sincere condolences.  No doubt you & she did the best you knew how
to do then, but maybe she was right that something didn't really "click".  :-(




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+
 * Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)