Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Michigan Music

Redgirl needs some information on Michigan Music:

"This is completely off the subject, but does anyone remember which street Michigan Music was on? I used to take piano lessons there from Tamara Najar before switching to FIM. It was a big gorgeous 19th century home with loads of rooms and red velvety carpet on its massive wooden staircase. The shop was on the first floor, the pianos and practice rooms on the second."


9 comments:

  1. Was it on the corner of Third St. and Clifford? Across the street from the YWCA, right? The building is still there. I used to be haunted by the tenement that was on the next block... or was that tenement on 4th?

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  2. Third St. could be right, but Clifford is a little hazier -wasn't there a Clifford St. somewhere further south near the railroad tracks & 12th St.? I don't remember it being on a corner, but that doesn't mean it wasn't. Funny - I remember the interior plain as day, but outside I only remember the extremely small parking lot, but not much else.

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  3. I think smurf inc. has it right. I bought my first harp music there when I was young. My recollection is that it was across from the YWCA.

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  4. Definitely Third Street. My grandfather's home used to be across the street... when it was sold in the 70's, it was bulldozed and turned into.... a parking lot... no surprise there.

    I used to take piano lessons there too... I want to say my piano teacher's name was Margaret Brown, but I don't recall exactly...

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  5. Michigan Music was located at 3rd and Harrison in a large old house (with red velvety carpet on the massive wooden staircase). I also studied piano with Margaret Brown. Miss Brown, as she was known to all of her students, had quite a musical pedigree. As a child, she studied with Mdme. Jolie, a French pianist. Later, she studied with a renowned pianist / professor at the University of Michigan School of Music in Ann Arbor. Alicia de Larrocha, who died this month, conducted a workshop for Miss Brown's students when she visited Flint for a concert in the 1970s. The New York Times obituary noted that Ms. de Laroccha was "incontestably one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century."

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    1. I also took piano lessons from Miss Brown for 12 years. She was a wonderful teacher and I was sad to hear of her passing. Does anyone know when she passed away? I thank her every time I sit down at my keyboards. Also, I worked for a while cleaning and letting in students after hours at Michigan Music.....I have nothing but fond memories of the place!

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  6. I used to love that staircase and that red velvet carpet - that whole house had such an aura about it. I think my first teacher there was Tami Najar and the second Sharon Ledbetter - or vice versa. Then I ended up at FIM. I have a vague recollection of Margaret Brown but had no idea that Alicia De Larrocha had come to Flint, let alone done a workshop.

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  7. This house was at Clifford and 3rd...was this the one?

    http://www.cardcow.com/140552/residence-of-w-a-patterson-cor-3rd-and-clifford-sts-flint-michigan-flint/

    This was the William Paterson mansion.

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  8. Oops, my mistake, obviously the Paterson mansion isn't "still there". Sorry.

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Thanks for commenting. I moderate comments, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. You might enjoy my book about Flint called "Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City," a Michigan Notable Book for 2014 and a finalist for the 33rd Annual Northern California Book Award for Creative NonFiction. Filmmaker Michael Moore described Teardown as "a brilliant chronicle of the Mad Maxization of a once-great American city." More information about Teardown is available at www.teardownbook.com.