Pressing On: The Roni Stoneman Story

4. Music

= F L I Music More than the invented games, more than the television, the main thing we had instead of toys was music. Like most of the people from around Galax, Daddy would make his own instruments. And here’s one of those times him being good at psychology came in. He wanted us kids to learn to play, so he’d put an instrument on the bed and warn us, “Now, I’m not finished with that one yet. I don’t want you picking it up when I’m at work. And it better not be out of tune when I get home.” Well, soon as he got out of sight over the hill, we’d make a dive for that instrument. Scott would usually get there first. Then I’d cry and holler and eventually it would be my turn. And everybody’d be playing with it all day long. Then when we’d see Daddy coming, we’d yell, “Get it in tune, here comes Daddy! Is it in tune? Okay, put it on the bed!” And we’d all run away from the bed. It worked a little like the Suzuki method, where the younger children Music 26 / pressing on imitate the older ones. The Stonemans practiced it before the Japanese named it. A group of kids, instruments laying at our disposal, and we thought, well, if my brother can play it, I can too. Most of my older brothers could play several instruments, but those of us that ended up doing the most with the music started specializing. Patsy played the autoharp, Donna the mandolin, I went for the banjo, Van the guitar, Scott the fiddle, and Jimmy the bass or what we called the whomper. (It looked like a cross between a bass and a banjo, but was played and sounded like a bass.) No one told us which instruments would be ours, we just figured it out. It was as if the instruments chose us. And because of Daddy’s warning, we learned really well how to tune instruments! To this day I can’t tune by electric tuners. Although Scott was expert at all the instruments and was my main teacher for the banjo, and Donna’s for the mandolin, the fiddle had chosen him in a really special way. Every summer, as I said, I would go back to Galax for three months. Usually me and Van and Mommy, and sometimes some of the other kids. It was great being there—we’d eat the big purple grapes on the vine, go down to the spring and fill buckets of water and put them on the front porch, and go out to the granary to get the corn. One time Scott was there too. He came to help take care of Grandpa, who had fallen off a hay wagon and broken his neck. Well, Grandpa was propped up in a little bed, and Scott took one of his fiddles and was just squawking on it—he was about eleven. Grandpa looked over. “Son, you’ve got it,” he said. “You have a mighty fine bow wrist.” In the next couple of days, Grandpa started getting out of bed. “C’mon,” he said to Scott, “let’s walk up to Granny Holler. I want to teach you something.” I went with them. I was always beside Grandpa—he couldn’t hardly shake me if he tried. I was like a parasite, like Spanish moss. I was only about six, but I remember how I watched Grandpa to see if he was walking okay as we went up the hill, Scott helping him and me holding his other hand. We sat down on a big flat rock. Grandpa said, “Now I want you to be real quiet. Just listen.” We listened to the mountain sounds. “There’s the mockingbird over there,” said Grandpa to Scott. “Can you hear him? He’s mocking the whippoorwill. Now that’s the way you play it on the fiddle. That’s how you learn the mockingbird pressing on / 27 song. You come up here and listen to the birds.” Scott would later be famous for the way he played the mockingbird song. Scott played the fiddle all day long. Once when I was really young, I asked him about that, why before breakfast, before anything, he’d pick up his fiddle. He said, “Well...