Musical Alphabet

Digging around in the archives, I came across my Musical Alphabet manuscript, which I finished several years ago, and sent it off to my agent. The response came back:

The alphabet book isn't working. It's all over the place with different points of view, different rhyme schemes, different numbers of lines. It has to be more focused.

She went on to tell me how to write it:

Maybe each letter could feature one four-line sequence with one character whose name starts with that letter and includes some words that start with that letter (like "Carlita," "clacks" and "clicks" in the "C" entry), and each character could be an animal. The four-line sequence should be rhythmic, not rhyming. The rhyming gets to be numbing.

Of course, she was right. She knows how to sell books. But I never went back to fix any of it, because I liked the way it was. Wacky, confused, with different points of view. Like me. Like us. Unfocused, rhythmically all over the place, mind-numbing.

Musical Alphabet

A

Accordion players never rest

They have so much to do

Squeezing, pressing, playing keys

I’m dizzy now, aren’t you?

Marie went on to bigger and better things. What Do You Hear?

To play the cello, one must sit

and use a cello bow

and if the cello brings a friend? 

I really just don’t know

D

Delbert’s father sat him down

and made him play the drums

with a rat-a-tat-tat and a paradiddle

and a quick rim shot around the middle

ol’ Delbert then picked up the fiddle

and dad picked up the Tums.

E

Elrod McFarsical isn’t all there

he’s missing a bit of his cronium

or is that the cranium, oh well I don’t care

cause he sure plays a killer euphonium

F

I want a Bb Flugelhorn!

I want to have it now!

and I will honk it night and morn,

My mom will have a cow!

G

Gloria plays the glockenspiel,

her mallet in her teeth

which leaves her hands freed up to do 

her knitting underneath.

H

Orchestral harps have lots of strings

and several pedals too

If you sit down to try to play

You won’t know what to do.

Ever heard of a hurdy gurdy?

Most people haven’t but they’re really purdy

You turn the crank, it starts to play

And all the monkeys run away. 

K

L

I knew a dear old newt

who played a lovely lute

in a dashing pinstriped suit

The newt wore the suit, not the lute

Ain’t that cute?

M

If you go to Caracas

just bring your maracas

‘cause maybe they’ll ask you to play

or maybe they’ll want you to dance the joropo

If so, you can just run away.

O

Once a hobo had an oboe

he hid under his bed

The oboe, I mean, not the hobo,

or he would have hit his head.

P

I’d give a quarter just to play

the penny whistle for a day

I’d trill and flutter, tweet like a bird 

And even though it seems absurd

I’d tweet myself and one good fwend,

to ice cweam, at the day of end.

Or should that be the end of day?

Forget it, I just want to play.

T

U

The ukele’s little

It can fit inside your hat

My uncle Tim, a tiny guy,

he had one, just like that

He used to play it all the time,

He’d tiptoe, strum and flutter

until he tripped, his hat flipped off

and landed in the gutter

V

I bet you think I’m gonna write

about the violin, not quite.

I’d rather write about the fiddle

It’s a little rough around the middle

Sawing, shuffling, swaying, squealing

You just can’t help yourself from reeling!

Ms. Violin also went on to bigger and better stages What Do You Hear?

W

Know what makes a whistle work?

A fipple.  There, it’s true. 

That’s what they call the little ball

that jumps inside the whistle wall

It flips and wiggles and gives its all

and whistled when you blew.

Y

A Yue Qin comes from China

and it’s called a ‘Moon Guitar’

I wonder, if you played one

would it sing out to a star?

And play a lovely lullaby

for babies near and far.

Z

Did she bring her zither with her?

And did she catch the 5:02?

I hope so, ‘cause I’d hate to mither

I want to hear her strum, don’t you?

So there you have it, boys and girls. I hope you enjoy. Maybe I’ll find me a wacky agent and go back and draw the rest of this goofed up motley crew.

Happy Friday.