236. My musical biography -- for musichousepublications.com
I was asked to write a musical biography for "Music House Publications", where I have some music on the internet. I decided to use that as my entry today. I hope it is interesting to you readers.
MUSIC RUNS IN MY VEINS !
I was blessed to be born to two very musical people, as their first child. My father, Orson Pratt Miles, had a beautiful tenor voice, and my mother Ruth Allen Miles, had a beautiful soprano voice.
Pratt, as my father was called, grew up in St. George, Utah, without the convenience of television, radio or movies, and groups of young people loved to get together and sing. On his Church mission to Tennessee he sang in duets and quartets. One quartet sang over the biggest radio station in Memphis, Tennessee. He brought a duet music book home from Tennessee and while working in a Church group with Ruth Allen, a young school teacher, he asked her to sing a duet with him. They sang “In the Garden’ and found their voices blended very well. They sang and practiced together many months, and also sang in a vocal quartet before they became engaged and married.
My mother Ruth began singing in her early teen years and remembered as a child, hearing her grandmother, Martha Ann Riste Wilson, sing to her in her heavy English accent. Martha Ann was a gifted high soprano who at age 16 had been in the Royal Choir and sang a solo for Queen Victoria before they left England to come to America.
My great grandmother, Martha Ann Riste Wilson, who sang for Queen Victoria
At Dixie College Ruth took vocal lessons, and sang leads in operettas. For six summers she was a “singing waitress” in the dining rooms of the lodges in Bryce Canyon, Utah, and Grand Canyon before her marriage.
After their marriage they sang duets in over 400 funerals, and in pageants and many programs. My mother told me that when she was married, after teaching school for six years, she had bought a piano, a washing machine, and a sewing machine. So when I was just a few months old, she used to put me in my high chair, tie a dish towel around me, and put me in front of the piano to amuse me.
I have two younger sisters, Vina Ruth, and Mavis Joy, and when we were just children, my parents would teach us the melody of a song, and they would each take a harmony part, and we would sing in a trio. By the time I was 13, Vina Ruth, 11, and Mavis Joy was 8, we began singing the same songs in a trio. As the “Miles Sisters Trio” we sang for around 10 years in many programs, and over a local radio station, before one by one we got married.
A family picture, taken when my sisters and I were teen-agers -- abt. 1952.
My mother started me taking piano lessons when I was eight years old, in a sort of group piano lesson. Over the next 12 years, I took from 10 different teachers, some just a few lessons, when we would spend a summers in Salt Lake City for my mother to complete her degree. My mother taught school many years, as my father, Pratt, a barber, had poor health, mostly from after effects of being in World War I, and having what is now called Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. It was then called “shell shock”. When she began teaching, only a 2 year degree from Dixie College was required.
This was taken when I was in the 10th grade.
Apparently when I would get tired of lessons, mother would allow me to stop, and soon I wanted to take lessons again. My last teacher was Crawford Gates at BYU, who was truly a perfectionist! His counsel was to NEVER play a mistake. Play slowly enough from the beginning that when you were able to play faster, your accuracy was established. I especially remember Dixie College piano teachers: Loa Johnson as a wonderful teacher, and Adolph Feher, a man who was blind from birth. He had memorized, and could play anything I was learning, and with such beautiful expression, which he taught his students. During those years I accompanied many soloists, groups, and choirs, and began teaching piano lessons while in college.
This picture was taken after I was married, in 1955. Left to right, Mavis Joy, Vina Ruth, and Pal (me.)
After three years of college, I married Wayne D Eckman, who also had musical ancestors. In the next 18 years, we had nine children. Wayne went through college and became an elementary school teacher, so throughout the years it was quite helpful for me to teach piano lessons when I could, to help out financially. Each of our children have had at least a few piano lessons, and some have played various other instruments. Our oldest son, Wayne M., became an accomplished accordionist, and our youngest, Jeremy, became a very accomplished pianist, and has taught piano lessons. Others have been in choirs, school musicals, etc. But having music in our family has truly been such a blessing! My husband has always supported me, and allowed me to use my music whenever I had the time, sandwiched in with raising a large family!
This is my husband Wayne and me quite a few years ago.
We lived many years in Sandy, Utah, and then moved back to my home town of St. George over 30 years ago. Since we moved back, it has been my joy to be involved in music in many venues here in St. George, accompanying various soloists and groups, college vocal students, etc., and teaching piano lessons. I have made so very many wonderful friends while being a rehearsal pianist for the St. George Musical Theater, and participating in many concerts in our local Tabernacle. In 1989, I had an older lady as a piano student, and she asked me to simplify some hymns for her to play. After doing that, she said she thought that others would be interested in them also. That led to my being able to have three simplified music books published in 1989 and 1990, by Sonos Music Company.
Throughout those many years, my daughter Delsy wrote words, and I wrote music to several songs. When Kathy and Bob Briggs moved near us, and we became acquainted several years ago, she told me of her internet site, “Music House Publications”, and I was interested to be able to submit songs for this site. During these past years it has been my joy to write some original songs, but mostly to make arrangements of songs and hymns, for choirs and as piano solos. I now love to watch the musical development of our grandchildren. One grandson seems to have inherited my father’s tenor voice, and recently had the tenor lead in the Mozart Opera “Don Giovanni”, in college. Other grandchildren are younger, and still developing their talents. I love to hear them, and encourage them.
This is Vina Ruth, Mavis Joy, and me taken just in 2012.
As is often the case in life, sometimes life hands us “lemons”, and we go on and try to make our own version of “lemon aid”. About a year ago I had pains develop in my right arm. After a few cortisone shots which didn’t help, I had an MRI and found I had a tendon severed from the bone in my right shoulder. So after a rotator cuff shoulder operation last month, I have been wearing a sling on my right arm, and not able to play the piano. I am truly hoping after I have physical therapy, which will begin just after I turn 80 years old in October, that I will regain the strength in my right arm and be able to continue playing and writing the music I love.
This picture was taken about 2 years ago, Pal and Wayne
I believe every person has brought many talents to this life, and to develop them each is part of our giving back to this wonderful world. Each child has the ability to learn many things! I truly know that many “talents” aren’t just the music, dance, sports, or theater type. You can have a talent for being kind, friendly, dependable, spiritual, creative, mechanical, building and/or fixing things, inventing, understanding people, etc. Myriads of talents! Each good personality or character quality is actually a talent. Many of those types of talents are more important to your joy, and the joy you can give to others, than the more showy talents.
To be useful, helpful, and encouraging to other people in this life is truly the most important. Anything I have been able to do in a musical way along those lines, I am truly grateful for. And I am so grateful for my musical parents, and musical grandparents on both sides also. I worry that young people today become so used to being entertained that they don’t want to put in the effort to truly develop a talent such as music. Let’s all try and help the coming generations develop any talents they have. It will add so much to their lives, and this world!
MUSIC RUNS IN MY VEINS !
I was blessed to be born to two very musical people, as their first child. My father, Orson Pratt Miles, had a beautiful tenor voice, and my mother Ruth Allen Miles, had a beautiful soprano voice.
Pratt, as my father was called, grew up in St. George, Utah, without the convenience of television, radio or movies, and groups of young people loved to get together and sing. On his Church mission to Tennessee he sang in duets and quartets. One quartet sang over the biggest radio station in Memphis, Tennessee. He brought a duet music book home from Tennessee and while working in a Church group with Ruth Allen, a young school teacher, he asked her to sing a duet with him. They sang “In the Garden’ and found their voices blended very well. They sang and practiced together many months, and also sang in a vocal quartet before they became engaged and married.
My mother Ruth began singing in her early teen years and remembered as a child, hearing her grandmother, Martha Ann Riste Wilson, sing to her in her heavy English accent. Martha Ann was a gifted high soprano who at age 16 had been in the Royal Choir and sang a solo for Queen Victoria before they left England to come to America.
At Dixie College Ruth took vocal lessons, and sang leads in operettas. For six summers she was a “singing waitress” in the dining rooms of the lodges in Bryce Canyon, Utah, and Grand Canyon before her marriage.
After their marriage they sang duets in over 400 funerals, and in pageants and many programs. My mother told me that when she was married, after teaching school for six years, she had bought a piano, a washing machine, and a sewing machine. So when I was just a few months old, she used to put me in my high chair, tie a dish towel around me, and put me in front of the piano to amuse me.
I have two younger sisters, Vina Ruth, and Mavis Joy, and when we were just children, my parents would teach us the melody of a song, and they would each take a harmony part, and we would sing in a trio. By the time I was 13, Vina Ruth, 11, and Mavis Joy was 8, we began singing the same songs in a trio. As the “Miles Sisters Trio” we sang for around 10 years in many programs, and over a local radio station, before one by one we got married.
My mother started me taking piano lessons when I was eight years old, in a sort of group piano lesson. Over the next 12 years, I took from 10 different teachers, some just a few lessons, when we would spend a summers in Salt Lake City for my mother to complete her degree. My mother taught school many years, as my father, Pratt, a barber, had poor health, mostly from after effects of being in World War I, and having what is now called Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. It was then called “shell shock”. When she began teaching, only a 2 year degree from Dixie College was required.
Apparently when I would get tired of lessons, mother would allow me to stop, and soon I wanted to take lessons again. My last teacher was Crawford Gates at BYU, who was truly a perfectionist! His counsel was to NEVER play a mistake. Play slowly enough from the beginning that when you were able to play faster, your accuracy was established. I especially remember Dixie College piano teachers: Loa Johnson as a wonderful teacher, and Adolph Feher, a man who was blind from birth. He had memorized, and could play anything I was learning, and with such beautiful expression, which he taught his students. During those years I accompanied many soloists, groups, and choirs, and began teaching piano lessons while in college.
After three years of college, I married Wayne D Eckman, who also had musical ancestors. In the next 18 years, we had nine children. Wayne went through college and became an elementary school teacher, so throughout the years it was quite helpful for me to teach piano lessons when I could, to help out financially. Each of our children have had at least a few piano lessons, and some have played various other instruments. Our oldest son, Wayne M., became an accomplished accordionist, and our youngest, Jeremy, became a very accomplished pianist, and has taught piano lessons. Others have been in choirs, school musicals, etc. But having music in our family has truly been such a blessing! My husband has always supported me, and allowed me to use my music whenever I had the time, sandwiched in with raising a large family!
We lived many years in Sandy, Utah, and then moved back to my home town of St. George over 30 years ago. Since we moved back, it has been my joy to be involved in music in many venues here in St. George, accompanying various soloists and groups, college vocal students, etc., and teaching piano lessons. I have made so very many wonderful friends while being a rehearsal pianist for the St. George Musical Theater, and participating in many concerts in our local Tabernacle. In 1989, I had an older lady as a piano student, and she asked me to simplify some hymns for her to play. After doing that, she said she thought that others would be interested in them also. That led to my being able to have three simplified music books published in 1989 and 1990, by Sonos Music Company.
Throughout those many years, my daughter Delsy wrote words, and I wrote music to several songs. When Kathy and Bob Briggs moved near us, and we became acquainted several years ago, she told me of her internet site, “Music House Publications”, and I was interested to be able to submit songs for this site. During these past years it has been my joy to write some original songs, but mostly to make arrangements of songs and hymns, for choirs and as piano solos. I now love to watch the musical development of our grandchildren. One grandson seems to have inherited my father’s tenor voice, and recently had the tenor lead in the Mozart Opera “Don Giovanni”, in college. Other grandchildren are younger, and still developing their talents. I love to hear them, and encourage them.
As is often the case in life, sometimes life hands us “lemons”, and we go on and try to make our own version of “lemon aid”. About a year ago I had pains develop in my right arm. After a few cortisone shots which didn’t help, I had an MRI and found I had a tendon severed from the bone in my right shoulder. So after a rotator cuff shoulder operation last month, I have been wearing a sling on my right arm, and not able to play the piano. I am truly hoping after I have physical therapy, which will begin just after I turn 80 years old in October, that I will regain the strength in my right arm and be able to continue playing and writing the music I love.
I believe every person has brought many talents to this life, and to develop them each is part of our giving back to this wonderful world. Each child has the ability to learn many things! I truly know that many “talents” aren’t just the music, dance, sports, or theater type. You can have a talent for being kind, friendly, dependable, spiritual, creative, mechanical, building and/or fixing things, inventing, understanding people, etc. Myriads of talents! Each good personality or character quality is actually a talent. Many of those types of talents are more important to your joy, and the joy you can give to others, than the more showy talents.
To be useful, helpful, and encouraging to other people in this life is truly the most important. Anything I have been able to do in a musical way along those lines, I am truly grateful for. And I am so grateful for my musical parents, and musical grandparents on both sides also. I worry that young people today become so used to being entertained that they don’t want to put in the effort to truly develop a talent such as music. Let’s all try and help the coming generations develop any talents they have. It will add so much to their lives, and this world!
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