The Birmingham Conservatory of Music

It would be impossible to overestimate the importance to my life of the Birmingham Conservatory of Music. At the time, though, it meant something entirly different to me. It was a way for me to get the hell out of radio.

By 1968 it was clear that the radio of my dreams and fantasies did not exist anymore, at least not within my realm of possibilities and, largely, for very few who sat behind a microphone for a living. This sad fact was brilliantly illustrated by the TV show, WKRP in Cincinatti, which came along only a couple of years later...just in time to salve my wounds. The loss of radio was a disappointment; I'd planned to spend my life there.

But indeed the show was a welcome salve, and for that I--along with many other disillusioned radio dreamers--want to thank that hilarious cast and crew. From the busty receptionist to sweet Gordon Jump, Venus Fly Trap and Johnny what-is, the laughs were guaranteed. But the reality behind the show was, in fact, a fact--revealing, I believe, that the writers had firsthand experience with the radio merry-go-round. I'd bet my bruises on it. All that and Ian Wolfe, too!

But anyway, by 1968, when I bought the music school, radio had become a bad planet.

On a balmy June evening in May 1967, an eccentric piano teacher I knew told me that the Birmingham Conservatory of Music was for sale. (That's Birmingham, Michigan.) He described the place as highly-touted, sporting a staff of respected instructors that included members of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. But in spite of the school's thirteen year history of success, at that moment it was best described as having seen better days. So...it was for sale...for a song.

I'd never even been inside a music school at that time; my drum/clarinet/trumpet instruction had been suffered at the hands of band instructors in grade- and high-schools. Let's flip that; it was they who suffered; I thoroughly enjoyed myself. So, I was a musician of sorts, a disc jockey, a lifelong music-lover with semi-educated tastes. The idea of running a music school struck a deep, compatible note within...whether I was truly qualified or not. I loved the idea, and it represented an escape from the burden of having to suffer radio for a living.

Ivan the Eccentric thought the purchase worth consideration, given the school's reputation and the dirt cheap price. Ivan himself ran a music school--the Clarkston Conservatory--so he should know. And so I entered the picture. I needed only to convince myself that I could understand the problems of pupils and teachers...and to borrow a thousand dollars.

I haven't a clue why I thought psychologist Gerry Levin might like to be part owner of a music school, but he was instantly attracted to the idea. We were business partners within a few minutes of my phone call. Gerry had once been an interviewee on my radio talk show, my sole experience with him.

And so, we became co-owners, at a grand apiece, of an established and respected--if neglected--music school. Over the years, as it turned out, Gerry Levin was the perfect silent partner: I sent him a check each year at Christmastime, and he set foot inside the school only once in six years. He was a great guy, but I was glad he'd left the workings of the school to me alone.

In 1968, the Birmingham Conservatory of Music was housed in two adjacent two-story homes on Maple St., Birmingham's main drag. But they were two huge, money-guzzling albatrosses, both in ill repair, with twice the upkeep and twice the costs of operation. It was an inefficient situation, and so, because there happened to be a single two-story house directly across the street at a price we could afford, we moved. We simply rolled the pianos across the street and a crane did the rest.

The enrollment in mid-summer 1968 was down to eighty-one pupils--partly because it was summertime and partly because the place had been poorly managed for too long. Lest a specific someone be negatively implicated--the well-respected Detroit musician from whom we bought the school--let me explain the he and his partner were a couple of busy pianists who owned and operated another school in Detroit.

Physically, our new digs were a bit of a mess, so I got busy with paint brushes, new rugs and pictures, etc. One of the piano teachers had been doing double duty as director, so I relieved him of that responsibility. He, conveniently, was kind enough to show me the basic ropes of music school management. The future looked promising, the cash oulay had been minimal, and I was to learn that, fortuitously, the angels sang loudly in the freshening breeze. With proper management, the Birmingham Conservatory of Music would rise again. And it did.

The first year was spent learning the business and running the business, painting every square inch of the place, swelling the enrollment, and building a teaching staff composed of the most qualified teachers I could find. I sought additional members of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, for their obvious talents as well as their obvious clout. Other new staff had long histories as private teachers, and a couple of them were even long-haired young men with little higher education at all. But they were qualified, both as performers and teachers. Education has little to do with the teaching skill. There's more to it than black and white.

Without the proper attitude, a great performer can be an ineffective teacher. A good teacher enjoys the process, is willing to extend her/himself, and is deeply concerned with his pupils' progress. This may sound obvious but there are many musicians who resent having to teach; they do so only to supplement their incomes, an attitude with which optimum teaching doesn't usually happen.

As for building enrollment, an amiable relationship with the local newspaper seemed like a good place to start. Fortunately, the Arts Editor of The Birmingham Eccentric newspaper needed something to write about as badly as I needed to be written about. And so--ipapery n only eighteen months--thanks in large part to the Eccentric--the enrollment grew to almost three hundred. Any more and we'd have been teaching in the back yard.

Every time a new teacher came aboard I'd send the paper a press release. Anything and everything that could be dressed up to seem newsworthy went to the paper--such as a Sunday afternoon student recital. The paper, bless their papery hearts, printed everything I submitted. Additionally, they did a number of features on us over the years, photos and all. Every little bit helped with enrollment, and with our image. We became a worthy member of Birmingham's educational and artistic community. The Eccentric was an important part of that success. Thanks, guys.

Let's go back to the beginning, as we bade farewell to those two-story albatrosses. It was a strange musical safari, with a professional mover rolling our seven pianos across the street, up the porch steps and into our new housing. The three instruments that were to go into upstairs studios were lifted by crane and shoved through removed windows. It was an impressive sight, with the cops stopping traffic. The move was made within a few hours. Nor did we miss a beat as far as instruction was concerned. By early afternoon, kids were doing scales.

And so, I learned the ropes on the job, while swinging paint into every nook and cranny of that large house. And so the first year passed, successfully.

The brushes and rollers were finally put away for the last time near the end of our one year lease. But then one not-so-fine day the old-rich owner of the place toddled up the front stoop and informed me that he'd sold the building and that I'd have to be out in six weeks. Just like that.

HOf course he had a right to sell his property, but he hadn't a clue of the extent of travail he was causing us. I'd just spent a solid year fixing up his house, at my expense, and the musical future of a couple of hundred kids was placed in jeopardy. Yet suddenly the entire school was to be kicked out into the street, pianos and all.

Birmingham was--and is today--a wealthy, established community with limited, properly-zoned housing availability for a music school. Also, we'd been housed for a year at below market value. I think we paid about $250 a month rent.

Things did not look rosy. What we needed--immediately--was a free standing structure, zoned properly, with no immediate neighbors to be annoy ed with the "noise" of instrument instruction for ten to twelve hours a day. We needed something we could afford. Truth be told, we really couldn't afford the community we were serving.

But there happened to be a two-story residence for rent just down the street from us, off the main drag, a combination dance school/day care center. (That angelic throng I mentioned.) I'd been admiring the place over the past year, wondering if I shouldn't stop in and introduce myself someday. Now it seemed prudent to do just that.

The dance teacher was the owner, and she liked very much the idea of a music school sharing her quarters. Could things have been more excellent? Well, yes. Our new landlady couldn't really kick out the day care center, so we were forced to share our space with them, even though we had a lease, while the day care center did not. (In time, however, it became obvious that things weren't working well for the day care people, and so they found other quarters.)

While the pianos went in by crane, out came the well-used paint brushes. The entire place needed it, from top to bottom, ceilings and all. Five rooms and a hallway upstairs. Downstairs, the living room (our waiting room) and a large studio with bookcases and a fireplace. There was also the staircase to paint. The railing was a bugger. My new landlord made no offer to pay for it, or to share the cost, so I just...did it. Again. (I really don't want to paint anything ever again!)

But our lives had been saved, for which I was deeply grateful, and the horns started tooting again. All things considered, I liked the place much better than the one that had booted us out.

Perhaps the most difficult aspect of running a music school is dealing with staff. I suspect that former staff who might read this piece would find that statement surprising. I got along with most everyone and sent out no negative vibes regarding staff. But it's a life lesson in itself--getting to know the usually unusual people who teach music for a living. They seem to live a life removed from the reality most of us know. And they more often than not live up to their stereotypes as "absent-minded professors." Indeed, that is an endearing quality, though I had to finally accepted that musicians rarely inherit the gene that allows them to keep track of their own teaching schedules! Their absentmindedness, multiplied by seventeen teachers, meant much more work for me.

You never see those people out in real life, by the way. They're there, but you'd never know it. They look just like everyone else. But they're not!

In truth, I miss having them in my life. They are often the most disorganized people on earth. But they are among the most dedicated people I've ever met. They are certainly unusual people, as a lot, while more conventional than not. But God bless them all; I do miss having them in my life.

The above are generalities, of course. Some music teachers are as organized as nuns and Admirals. And there are the precious few who can do it all. At least three of the most well organized people I've ever known belong to that world. And three of them were the best human beings I've ever known.

I still worked in radio while running the school, doing the afternoon shift at an FM station coincidentally licensed to Birmingham--so it was at least a short drive to work. It would have helped the cause if the station's format had been more appropriate to the Conservatory, but it wasn't. In the mind of Detroit Symphony cellist, Arthur Bachmann, for example, the Bee Gees just didn't cut it. (I didn't like them either.) But I imagine that the school's director being in radio was a positive thing for the school.

The teaching staff often came with pretty nice resumes. A vocal instructor had just completed seven years in German and Italian opera houses. A huge, impressive tenor voice. Joseph Mazzolini, though, was a big Italian pussy cat.

An ad in the New York Times turned up a dancer from the Garden City Ballet Company. This shy girl had danced at Carnegie Hall. I was able to see her in performance at Detroit's Ford Auditorium, while bragging that she taught for me in Birmingham.

One piano teacher had studied with Arthur Schnabel. One of my guitar teachers is today a respected, and recorded, Blues and Ragtime guitarist. Maybe you've heard of Rick Ruskin. Others were long associated with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. One of them had been with the Symphony since 1928 and had never missed a service--although he said he was once late for rehearsal in 1932. Unfailingly, symphony members carried themselves confidently, with a distinguished air. After all, they were the only people in a blue collar town who went to work in a tuxedo.

Perhaps the most distinguished of those had first appeared to me as a kid of twelve or thirteen (I was the kid). Reading through the Detroit News Sunday Magazine one day in the early Fifties, I became fascinated by an article about a youth orchestra in Detroit. I was both fascinated and envious. Some twenty years later, I was graciously welcomed into the home of Taras Hubicki, cellist with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Hubicki took it upon himself to welcome me as new owner of a school to which he gave a few hours each week as teacher of viola and violin. And, at the same time, he became my gracious guide between the mundane outside world and the heady world of music. A couple of years later, I learned that Hubicki was none other than that long-haired, imposing man whose picture I'd seen years before in the newspaper, conducting that wonderful Youth Orchestra. Over the years, Taras Hubicki was an invaluable asset to the school, as a teacher and as a friend. He was sometimes unpredictable, but always charming. He was the heart of musical creativity.

Angels love a creative environment; they tend to pitch in and work magic at every opportunity. Every time I took on a new teacher the phone would start ringing for just that instrument. It was extraordinary. I asked a string bass player if he'd like to teach, assuming I could find him some students. Before his addition could be announced in the paper, two pupils walked in and signed up. A young woman walked in one day looking to teach music theory. It was the first time anyone had suggested a theory class. I thought we could probably scrape up enough advanced pupils to populate it, so I sent her home to wait for the results of a search. Only a couple of days later, four middle-aged women walked in looking for a theory class. They'd come from the adjacent county, some twenty miles away! Do not tell me the angels don't intervene; I thanked them for their help at the Conservatory many times. Thanks again, guys.

The landlady was nuts. What else is new, she was a landlady! I was told by someone who knew her that she'd been "unpredictable" since her husband died. Knowing that, I did my best to be a good tenant, and a help to her when needed. But I'm afraid my magnanimousity didn't help matters; eventually I had to get a court order to keep her out of the building, except when she was teaching.

You see, I was living there; I'd fashioned a cozy little living/sleeping area behind the piano in my office. Well, I came home one Sunday evening to find a Karate class thumping around in the dance studio, led by a family friend of the landlady's. She'd given him a key to my house!

She knew I was living there, in fact she was getting a break on her insurance rates because of it. But talking to her about the karate class was a waste of time. I tried for weeks, then finally was talked into getting a court order against both her and the Karate class. She, also, had taken to coming in at all hours, including early mornings. It was impossible to feel comfortable in my own home. The judge sided with me; he upheld the integrity of the lease and booted her out, except when teaching. She was not pleased. We remained "enemies" for the length of my lease. At the time of renewal - big surprise - she wanted double the rent, too much for me.

Small arts organizations eventually run up against the real estate problem - it seems to be written in the stars - and so, the Birmingham Conservatory bit the dust after a fruitless search for new quarters. In the six-year interim, rents had generally doubled or even tripled in Birmingham. Of course, we could have remained open if I'd been willing to work for next to nothing.

And so ended the twenty-year history of the Birmingham Conservatory of Music. I feel privileged to have had six of those years for myself. I'd do it again in a minute if someone would give me suitable housing for the school. Got a house you're not using?

I've only skimmed the surface of that experience here in this brief journal. Many excellent things happened to me because of that school. To spend one's day surrounded by children, and with the sound of a half dozen different instruments echoing through the halls, is wonderful. I remember one early afternoon, a young lad showed up for his lesson while our tenor, Mazzolini, was running through his powerful vocal exercises in the downstairs studio. The boy asked his mother, "What's that??"

There should be a place where I can formally thank all those who shared the Birmingham Conservatory with me. Names like Taras Hubicki, Arthur Bachmann, Ray Koos, Kathy Grulich, Joseph Mazzolini, and many others. They are the names of people who lived to do for others. They were talented teachers and talented performers, and they were talented friends. They were talented human beings--always a rare breed. I think we did something beautiful together at that school. Thanks to all of you for listening to those angel-whispers that led you to me.