Music schools offer adults chance to recapture some dreams

So you wanted to play the drums but your parents insisted on flute lessons; or maybe you saw yourself on guitar as the fifth Beatle but instead had to practice piano every day. However long ago those dreams developed, there is still time to fulfill those enduring musical ambitions.

Recent concerts by two local musical groups for adult beginners have once again proved that it is never too late to learn. The Adult Music Workshop, a program at Charles Music School in Centerbrook, gave a graduation concert at the Griswold Inn after eight weeks of instructional sessions. The New Horizons Band of the Community Music School, also in Centerbrook, played its concert at Essex Meadows.

Charles Domler, the new owner of Charles Music School, formerly known as Fisher Music School, says the idea for an adult performance group focusing on beginners came from one of his students, Rich Wall, an adjunct professor at Mitchell College. Wall wanted not simply to learn guitar but to learn how to play with other people. He asked Domler if he could rent a room and find others to jam with him. Domler, intrigued by the idea of a group of beginning guitarists making music together, instead set up an instructional program.

"It's like rock camp for adults," he explains.

A bit of knowledge of the guitar is necessary. ("Just enough to be dangerous," Domler says.) But all the players had to have one other thing in common: no performance experience with a group in front of an audience.

Playing before an audience, Wall admits, has its challenges but also its rewards. "It's a bit frightening, but it's a ball," he notes.

In addition to Wall, the group included Stein Roaldset on acoustic guitar, Rich Centola on electric guitar, Paul Garrity on bass and Tim Tobin on drums. Tobin, an internist better known locally as Dr. Tim, plays low brass in the Old Lyme Town Band. After sitting in when that band's drummer left, Tobin decided to take some percussion lessons.

In addition to playing, the members of the band also sing, with various degrees of enthusiasm.

"I did it once; never again," Garrity says.

Expanded horizons

The New Horizons Band, now in its third season at the Community Music School, is part of a national program for adults with no musical experience and for those who were once active in school music programs but have been inactive for many years.

Saxophone player Roger LeCompte said he played some accordion as a child but had never picked up a band instrument until he joined New Horizons. Now he is a member not only of New Horizons but also of the Community Music School's more advanced performing ensemble, which also played in the recent concert at Essex Meadows.

Tony Darrano, a retired math teacher from Valley Regional High School, is a longtime fife player with the Sailing Masters of 1812 in Essex. Still, he had something else in mind when he came to New Horizons. He wanted to play the trumpet, but when he tried the instrument the results were not encouraging.

"I couldn't get a sound out of it," he says. Then someone suggested he try the baritone horn. It was love at first note.

"I picked it up and that was it," he recalls.

Performances, he admits, still make him a little anxious, but it's all part of the experience.

"It's good to get a little nervous," he says.

New Horizons band director Patricia Hurley said the adult players were among the most enthusiastic musicians she has ever taught. Unlike younger students, who often resist practicing, she said she had to warn adult band members not too practice too much.

"They are totally inspiring; I get so much pleasure out of this," she says. At the recent concert the band played its way through a selection of music from Bach chorales to Broadway show tunes.

According to Hurley, in the band's three years of existence, only one person has left the group - and that was for financial reasons. She added, however, that the Community Music School offers both scholarships and discounts for senior citizens.

On a recent morning, clarinetist Anne Easton, an Essex resident, said she had gotten up at six in the morning in Pennsylvania to be sure to get to band on time. Her good friend Rhoda Bannon drives from West Hartford twice a week to play the drums with the group.

Bannon played percussion in junior high school, but had not done so again until last year.

"When I was 14 I played all the percussion instruments in the band and in the orchestra," she says. "Then I didn't do it again until I was 77."