Grandma had a huge influence on me through music. We listened together, played together, and composed and arranged. We compared notes on teaching piano and performance, and organized religious music. She came to my recitals (and Grandpa too). We kept lists and conducted experiments. We walked through the woods and thought about their music, and admired music that reflected landscapes.

Grandma left so many good memories and I can feel her presence when I play the piano. I dearly miss her daily musical notes to me.

Whenever I visited, within about half an hour Grandma would have me sitting at the piano with a new piece to sight read. She would listen from the kitchen, and toward the end come sit on the couch. When I finished she would exclaim at something she liked about it, even if it was terrible overall. 

We would play duets, laughing hysterically when we got off track, often making things up to get back to the right page. She and I would gasp for air as we giggled and listened to "Jonathon and Darlene", a duo that would add extra beats and sing slightly off-tune on purpose.

One time, she was driving me to work, and we listened to Arvo Pärt's "Fratres". It is a long, mournful piece so we drove very slowly and solemnly. I was also trying to finish my breakfast. We had been talking about death that morning and she thought this piece must be a meditation on grief. But she respectfully said she preferred to think of death as a time to celebrate a life, and a beautiful part of the cycle, not something in which we should get bogged down.

Several days before Grandma died, she drove to my house in Guelph and left me Beethoven's Sonata #3 in C Major. Her letter starts, "Happy Birthday, Dear Arthur. I loved this on the CBC." She never stopped encouraging me. I will continue to pass on her love of music for the rest of my life.