Por Primera Vez

Many many seasons ago, when my grandmother was not more than perhaps a fond figment of imagination my great grandmother, Consuelo De La Garza*, wrote a song. Perhaps she was in the throes of first love or honoring her already steady marriage; perhaps she wrote it for another man. Either way I've seen pictures, she was slammin'.

This was somewhere around 1910.

When she wrote the song she didn't write it down, she just played it, at the same time impressive and terribly annoying to her progeny. She taught it to my Grandmother, who taught it to my father and his brothers and sisters, and even taught it to my mother. A cherished moment of acceptance to the, very large, family.

I only heard the author of the song play it once, and I was very busy filling my diaper and didn't take the time to appreciate it. Still I heard it played many times including weddings, funerals, and sometimes just in the morning when my mom decided to play it. I think Crystal actually heard it at a family reunion.

At one point Tia Linda, who has been mentioned here several times, sat down to transcribe the damnable song. The result was a noble effort but the sheet music we got our hands on bore only a passing resemblance to the song.

Cut to today, perhaps 15 years later and you'll find my sister, Monica, standing in her pink pajama's in front of my father's printer watching the newly transcribed 'Por Primera Vez'. We even piped the music she generated through a Midi reader, and I can say, without fear of correction, that 'Por Primera Vez' is now very closely approximated on paper, well into it's fifth generation. YAY!

Now I'm working on getting together an mp3 of it that I'll use as the theme to my upcoming hit movie.

*Funny Note: Consuelo De La Garza, my great grandmother, married someone else named De La Garza, who passed away before she married Gregorio Garza, the great grandfather I knew very well. So technically you could refer to my great grandmother as "Consuelo De La Garza De La Garza Garza"