by Twylla Crosby
Copyright 2000 Albion News
Music lessons often become a battlefield where parents think of retreating when practice time rolls around.
"I've known a lot of adults who said, 'I wish my mom had made me continue piano lessons,' " Janet Rieck, Albion, said. "I've never yet met one who said they wished their mom hadn't made them finish taking piano lessons."
Janet remembers how much she wanted to learn to play the piano from her earliest memory. "And we never had a piano in the house," Janet said.
Once she began playing the piano, she has continued taking lessons for most of her adult life. Trained as a classical pianist, she did give private lessons from her home near Albion, but she simply doesn't have time for that now.
Her father, Clinton Wendland, was an Air Force Chaplain, which meant the family was limited to 2000 pounds of household goods during their reassignment moves so there was not a piano in their home for several years.
"I learned to read music in music class in grade school," Janet, who has been employed by ESU 7 as an Orientation and Mobility Specialist and a vision consultant for 22 years, said.
"One year I was just so determined. We had gone to my grandmother's house, the one with a piano, and I had decided I was going to learn to play something on the piano."
She picked out a hymn and mastered the top part of the music. "I never did get so I could play that hymn, but I worked at it so hard, and made such a nuisance of myself with everybody, because the piano sat in the central place in the house. I think it gave my parents a message," she said.
During her father's posting to Hawaii, her parents bought a piano, and found a teacher for Janet, the oldest of five children. "I suppose it was a struggle for them financially," she said.
She paid for her lessons by working for the music teacher who also directed a church choir. "I learned a few work skills and I got piano lessons," she said.
Her father and her mother, Bernice Wendland, kept music in their home. The couple sang in chapel choirs, and at home the family sang together. Janet recalls doing her ironing chores to the strains of Stravinsky's Firebird Suite and Bach's Brandenburg Concerto
"I'm basically a classical pianist," Mrs. Rieck said. She continued her lessons with various teachers after the family left Hawaii. Her teachers prepared her well because she received a music scholarship following her graduation from high school in Columbus, Ohio.
Janet has combined her love of music with her love of learning.
She received a bachelor's degree in music education from Otterbein College; an MA in Special Education and Vision Impaired from the University of Northern Colorado and a MS in special education for the orientation of mobility for visually impaired. She also studied organ, violin and voice during her college years.
She would like to get a doctorate in music, "just for the knowledge I would gain," she said. She said she will continue piano lessons until her teacher tells her 'I can't teach you anything else.'
Janet studied for two years at the Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati and with several teachers after she moved to Nebraska. Her current teacher is in Lincoln. "They keep getting farther and farther away," she said.
Her love of music led her to romance a month after she came to Albion 22 years ago. "I was 'church-hopping' at the time and I landed at the Zion Lutheran Church," she said.
Doyle Rieck was the church organist. When she complimented him on his musical selection, "He looked straight at me and said, 'Who are you anyway?' That was my introduction to him," she said with a laugh.
Doyle, who has dr Electric, is known throughout the area for his expertise in music and computer-assisted displays. The couple enjoys playing duets together. They designed and made the graphics for her newest CD and cassettes.
Janet memorizes most of the music she plays and records her music when she feels a piece is, "as good as it is going to get." She archives her cassettes for her own enjoyment or as gifts to friends and former teachers. "I don't do needlework or crafts or quilting. This is what I do," she said.
She arranged a musical piece for a duet with her at piano and Rev. Mary Avidano, pastor of the Akron Presbyterian and United Church of Christ Congregational, Albion, on harmonica, but she couldn't get the balance of the music right when she tried to record it.
She asked Paul Hosford, Albion, Hosford Music Service, to record for them. "In the process he recorded some of my stuff. When I started listening to it, it was a very emotional experience for me," she said. "I felt like I was inside the piano." She made arrangements for him to record her CD, Romance and Raindrops.
"Despite the fact that it was difficult work, it turned out very well. It's very professional in all respects," Hosford said. "I think it is a testament to technology that people can do things like this wherever they happen to be now."
Hosford, who teaches guitar, said, "I think for some children, it's harder to get them not to play." Some of his students talk about their parents saying, 'Stop playing that.' One of his students, in a burst of enthusiasm, promised to bring his future famous band and present a concert in Hosford's front yard.
Both Hosford and Janet emphasize that parents must be involved with a music teacher's lessons.
"Kids will do just about anything if they get attention for doing it, and you (the parents) have control over whether it will be either positive or negative," Janet said.
When you first listen to her newest CD you realize her parents made their daughter's week of pounding on her grandmother's piano a very positive experience.
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