About
DavidNow and then someone arrives in Life with pure, raw, incredible musical perspective, talent, and creative expression. Most famous folk that come to mind might be Mozart, Beethoven, Chuck Berry, John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix, Prince...and Thomas G. Goehner. I readily admit my biases for Mozart and Lennon and Hendrix, and Tom. I know few times in my life in which Tom was not engaged in something musical. Tom always had a way of finding some way to make some kind of noise...music...and finding myriad ways to make music. Tom always found pianos to play...we visited friends' homes or churches or schools, and Tom always found where the pianos were, and he would start plinking away and coming up with his own songs. Tom found ways to turn pieces of scrap conduit into some kind of instrument...his most famous being his version of my brother Steve's recorder...Tom fashioned a 9-inch piece of pipe into what he called his "T-corder". Tom was always blowing into anything with an opening just to see what it would sound like. We had an old desk lamp that burned out (from using light bulbs that were far too much wattage for the device...so Tom took the lamp apart...it had a flexible metal neck with a metal bell cover...of course he blew into it and it made a whistling noise that changed pitch depending upon how he moved the lamp neck. He called it his "Lamp". But what was most amazing about Tom was how he refused to be confined by music, sounds, instruments. Tom and my sister and I took music lessons from our Aunt Carol...Tom hated music lessons. He would complain that practicing songs in our music and theory books was ruining his creativity...so he never practiced and instead spent his time making up his own songs. He was fond of trying to play only using the black keys on the piano...he once told me that black keys were otherwise lonely and those keys and strings needed more attention. Once Tom received our mom's permission to quick piano lessons it seemed his music talents expanded. He had an incredible voice. He was known for singing while mowing the huge church yard in Bay City...not realizing that his voice carried beyond the roar of the Cub Cadet mower. He taught himself how to play guitar. He took the components from his friend Al's electric guitar and turned his 4-string guitar into an acoustic electric 4-string guitar. He played that guitar all the time, literally playing until he was covered in sweat. I have that 4-string electric acoustic guitar, still with original sweat marks. Just like other shared activities that Tom and I developed (slow-motion football, HO gauge race cars, ping pong, wrestling), he and I shared many many hours playing music together. He would play his guitar and I would play the piano...immediately after eating supper he would say "David, wanna play?", which was the prompt for spending hours tinkering on the instruments, my penchant for playing melody and Tom expanding his improvisations. Once he moved out on his own, Tom found electronic keyboards, and then music recording devices, and his creativity both escalated and expanded. Tom was a master of reverb and digital delay and chorus, and created amazing compositions with his 4-track recorder. Visiting Tom meant walking into his place, where music was always coming from somewhere, and then sitting down to his instruments and creating riffs and songs. Given his raw talent, it's perhaps unfortunate that Tom didn't delve deeper into a more formal musical career. He collaborated with some of his music compadres to form Surge...Tom mostly played keyboards...they recorded an album. Yet, Tom was mostly content tinkering. While he played and sang in church choirs, and joined forces with my brothers and me to "perform" at church potlucks and picnics, Tom just always seemed most content tinkering with instruments and sounds. As Tom got older, and encountered some personal challenges, music remained a stabilizing force of varying impact. Not that I can emphatically prove it, I believe that, following a rather severe brain injury, it was tinkering with an electronic keyboard that seemed to trigger significant healing for Tom. Tom had intended to hook up his keyboard to a digital recording device and start creating music again, on a more regular basis. While Tom only started that last intention...didn't realize his goal before he died...his gift of music to those all around him...anyone with ears to hear...resonants, I reckon especially for me. Tom exuded musical expression, and I like to believe his tinkerings and his songs keep echoing.
Credits
Send notes, comments, or questions to zack@braveappliance.com.