This blog about our cherished instruments started in January 2022 and was updated until we covered all of our significant instruments. (We sent the updates out through our monthly newsletter, so if you aren’t a member of our mailing list, you can join us through the link on this page below.)

JULY 2023

 

Mindy's Inherited Instruments

Final Post of the Instruments Blog

Once when I was very young I asked my Dad what he would be if he could do anything he wantedץ. After thinking for just a few seconds, he waved his arms in the air and said, “I would be an orchestra conductor.“ I remember this surprising me very much as my parents weren’t very musically talented, as far as instruments go. They did sing nicely though, and loved to act and ham it up on various stages. And my Dad had a penchant for writing song lyrics, which I happily inherited from him.

 

My parents had their own guitars, and I have memories of them playing folk songs together – mainly Pete Seeger’s “Little Boxes,” “Tom Dooly,” and the old 1940s song, “Mairzy Doats.” 

 

My Mom’s guitar was a beautiful matte vanilla color – unfortunately long gone. But my Dad’s guitar is with us, and I love knowing that that part of my Dad’s history is still with me. My son even learned to play guitar on his Grandpa’s guitar.

My Dad did own another instrument – a chromatic harmonica. The chromatic harmonica is a type of harmonica that uses a button-activated sliding bar to redirect air from the hole in the mouthpiece to the selected reed-plate desired. Funnily, I remember my Dad cleaning and maintaining that harmonica much more that actually playing it. As a little girl, I used to love sitting with him at the kitchen table with my legs dangling down while he took out all the tiny screws, cleaned and polished all the parts, and put them back together. I still have his harmonica – in its original case, although the case got chewed by one of the family dogs at some point over the years.

Larry and I met in 2006, and my Dad passed away in 1995 - the same year as Yitzhak Rabin - so he never got to hear Larry and I performing together. Still, I’m sure my Dad is in heaven smiling down at us every time we sing, conducting us majestically with his arms, finally making his conductor dream come true.

Below are some family pictures. The first picture is of my mother, my two brothers - and baby me! The next one is me and my father on our way to my brother's bar mitzvah celebration.

The next two pictures are with my parents, and my son, who is going to be a father himself within a month!

And now some pictures of my theatrical parents, having fun!


This is my Dad on a movie set. My parents were often extras in movies, when they lived in Netanya.

 

🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸

 

And that concludes our Instruments Blog. We have a bunch of less significant instruments: a series of different-key harmonicas, a recorder (halilit), a melodica, a professional tambourine and shakers, and a penny whistle, but they don't have meaningful stories behind them, so our pen rests... for now. 😊

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