A life-long love affair with music

Tempe Jan McGlaughlin

I have had a life-long love affair with music. Sounds excite me, soothe me, open my imagination. They are my prayers and my hopes, the satisfaction and satiation of my spirit. Sometimes the music devastates my heart.

Our basement flooded this summer (2021). I live in a tiny village in Arrow Rock, Missouri, and have been here for more than 40 years.  Lots to discover in a basement after that long. My husband, Bruce, discovered several portfolios of artwork that he had produced when we lived in Los Angeles and he worked as a set designer and artist. Amazing to see the years fade away.

When my husband brought up a box of old cassette tapes, and a cassette player that could only play, but not rewind, I discovered 45-year-old songs that I had written and performed. I didn’t remember that I had a 3½ octave range, and sang songs in the Joni Mitchell style typical for a young woman in 1968-75. My memory was stirred to the places I had sung, to the days and circumstances and even thoughts as I wrote each song.

I was a 5-year-old carol choir member who couldn’t wait for choir practice. A 16-year-old folk singer with guitar and group singing valentines to our schoolmates. Musical practices, songs written for school projects, traveling and singing in choir trips, coffee houses, bars, churches, theatres, choirs, solos, duets, chorus members, gospel choirs, praise teams, jazz lessons, choreography lessons, voice lessons, guitar lessons, piano lessons.

In junior high school I played clarinet in a band for a year, but couldn’t continue because I couldn’t sing when I was playing clarinet. I can’t sing now. I had vocal cord cancer a couple of years ago, and only have about three notes in the deep bass range….but I whistle a lot! And I write.

I hear melodies – all the time, sometimes handed to me almost complete!  Sometimes an illusive fragment that haunts me, til I find its home. I pray words into those melodies, I pray for my family, for our world, in my spiritual longings, in memory of lost loves and in longing for hope for loves found. I write songs to honor and remember family and friends, I write songs so I can hear a sound again and again.

I hope some of these songs touch your heart and encourage you. Know that they are given to you with all my love.