Interview with Cathy Oakes
I believe I first met Cathy Oakes in 2009 when I performed in Nashville with David Lanz, and then again in 2010 when she attended one of my house concerts. Since then she’s gone on to become a solo piano artist in her own right and even recorded one of her albums on my Steinway piano. At the end of the interview I’ll include a link to some of her music. Enjoy!…
PW: Tell me about your background:
CO: I don’t remember not playing the piano. We had an old upright piano in our house and I think I always played around on it. I started lessons when I was 5. I would memorize the one little piece my teacher would give me in a couple of days and get bored. About the third time my mother caught me laying on the piano stool trying to play with my feet, she decided that I would never do anything with the piano and sold it. After that, I tried taking lessons a couple of times and practicing either on the piano at church or the one at our school. It never worked well. I got bored very easily. But I would always gravitate to any piano I saw and play around on it. When I was in 8th grade, my parents bought me a piano for Christmas. I took lessons from several teachers. Finally, in my freshman year of high school, I joined the band and got seriously interested in music. The choir director asked me to accompany our school choir and I was hooked. I was also TERRIBLE!! ? I took lessons for a bit during high school, mostly to get better at accompanying the choir. But I was hooked on music. In high school, I was in every band and every choir that I could fit into my schedule.
I went to a small, private college in the mountains of West Virginia – West Virginia Wesleyan College and majored in music. I think the professors thought I was joking when I said I wanted to be a music major. For the first two years, I couldn’t decide whether to major in voice or piano and studied both. My piano professor was fresh out of college herself. She was wonderful! She taught me the most important thing I ever learned – HOW to practice. And once I learned that, I was off and running. My junior year in college, they made me decide whether to be a voice or a piano major. My piano professor said that I didn’t really choose between the two. I just chose to sing on the piano. I have always been all about the melody.
After college, I taught briefly in a public school, but continued to teach privately throughout my life. I also served in music ministry in every church we attended. I love choral conducting. I’ve often said that when Jesus comes back, I hope he finds me standing in front of a choir.
About 10 or 12 years ago, my husband fell in love with the New Age genre. He dragged me (kicking and screaming) to a concert at your house. I began to enjoy the genre, as well. Every time we would attend a concert, my husband would say, “You could be doing that.” I had never written anything except little 8 or 16 measure exercises that were required for music theory class. I used to tell my husband that other people wrote it, I just played it. I could NOT write music.
I finally went to my friend, Joseph Akins, who teaches music at MTSU and asked him to tell me that I could not write music. I was trying to shut my husband up! ? He gave me one little chord progression and told me to come back in a month. I went home and wrote five pieces in one week. Five months later, I recorded my first CD and by the end of a year, I had recorded three CDs. I often say that Joseph has a little magic wand that he waves over me and music comes out! ? I will release CD #7 in January.
I still teach privately. I am approaching my 50th year of teaching. And I still serve in music ministry at our church playing piano and organ from time to time, singing in the adult choir and directing the Children’s Choir. In the past couple of years, I’ve started writing choral pieces for both choirs and really enjoy choral writing.
PW: Who are your earliest musical influences?
CO: I grew up listening to the Big Bands of the 40’s and my dad’s favorite country singers. There was always music in our house. And I was always part of our church choir. My mom was the director. I didn’t really have a choice. But, in college I fell in love with classical music. My favorites are Mozart and Beethoven. My compositions are filled with influences from their music.
PW: What inspires you musically?
CO: Everything! Listening to the music of my colleagues, beautiful scenery, and especially water – of any kind. Put me next to a trickling stream or the ocean and music literally pours out of me. There is ALWAYS a song going through my head. I wake up from a sound sleep with a new melody playing in my brain. I often say that I really do hear voices ALL the time. Mine just happen to be piano and oboe and flute and cello.
PW: Your most favorite song in your catalog?
CO: WOW! That’s hard! The one that I’ve probably performed the most is “Like a Song,” the title track from my very first album. It’s one of those first five pieces that I wrote. I also like “To See You Again.” I like almost all of my songs (other than Morning Meditation and Dance of Remembrance). I really don’t like those. But they’ve made me more money than all of my others put together, I think! ? But truly, typically, if I don’t like a song, I won’t record it. I only did the two I don’t like because they are my husband’s favorites.
PW: Biggest joy in your career/life?
CO: Those are very different things. The biggest joy in my life is my family. My husband, children and grandchildren are truly the joy of my life. I am so blessed to have a wonderful family and a group of wonderful friends, who are like family. We call them “Framily” because they started as friends and became true family. Musically, I think my greatest joys have been working with other musicians through Enlightened Piano Radio and The River of Calm. I love the community of artists that I work with. And, of course, I love teaching my students who truly want to learn. The two highlights would be playing at Carnegie Hall and one incident that happened at an EPR concert. A young man (probably 10 or 11) attended the concert. His grandmother introduced us and said that he recently had become very interested in music (piano specifically) and was taking lessons and was so happy to be at our concert. It happened to be his birthday. At one point in the concert, I brought him up on stage and he and I improvised a piece together. He was terrified at the beginning. But the look on that young man’s face when we finished was priceless!!! I will never forget that day!
PW: Biggest struggle in your career/life?
CO: Balance. No question! I compose, record, run a music business, run a piano/voice studio, work with the children’s choir at church, work with The River of Calm, work with the local theater group, I am the founder of “Warrior Women,” an advocacy/support group for women with breast cancer and I work part-time as the treasurer/bookkeeper for our local Elks Lodge. Add to that time with family and friends and my husband’s incurable addiction to cruises. It gets a little overwhelming sometimes. I homeschooled all five of our children and thought I was insanely busy then. I truly thought that when our children were grown, my life would slow down. Boy, was I WRONG! I will be 65 in a couple of weeks and I’m busier now than I’ve ever been!
PW: How do you want to be remembered?
CO: Being 65 and having gone through a few recent serious health issues, I have actually thought about this pretty thoroughly. Of course, I hope people remember my passion for music. I hope they remember my music, my work with the theater and with the choir. I hope a few of my quilts become heirlooms for my family. But truly, if no one remembers anything else about me, I hope my children and grandchildren remember that I loved them with my whole heart. And I hope they remember and pass down the life lessons I tried to pass down from my parents. I hope they follow my footsteps through a life of faith and service to others. If that happens, my life will have been well spent.
PW: Thank you kindly for your time Cathy.
And now here is a link to a Cathy Oakes music
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Great interview! I’m curious what the advice was on HOW to practice 🙂
Jennifer – I used to think that practicing was simply playing through a piece over and over and over. My professor taught me to tear a piece of music apart like a jigsaw puzzle and then put it back together bit by bit. I practice small segments in different rhythms, teaching my fingers to get from one note to another quickly and smoothly. I also practice small segments with a metronome, starting at a much slower tempo and working up in increments of 2 beats per minute until I can play it perfectly at a faster tempo than indicated. After all of that, I put the piece together sometimes starting with the last few measures and adding previous measures (a few at a time) each time I play it. When I have got all of those pieces down, THEN I put the puzzle back together.