Why this Hymn Program?

The inspiration for this endeavor to make high quality piano lessons available to people everywhere, Piano Protégé, came as I was traveling home from the funeral of my 98-year-old Grandma, Shirley Hoyt Andersen in 2018. My Grandma and Grandpa Andersen both loved music! They came from families who sang together or played musical instruments. My mother and her siblings relate how their mother would wake them up in the morning singing: “Oh what a beautiful morning!” (Much to their dismay at times.) Grandpa would sing the old family songs on their trips to Arizona from Utah until the children all learned them. The “Andersen Sisters” sang professionally for several years and the family traveled with BYU Education weeks and performed while Grandma and Grandpa would teach classes.  

My own family, “The House of Jacob” did similarly in my home as we grew up. Mother would say things like “You don’t have to practice, only if you want to eat!” Or, “You don’t need to practice all your lives, just until you turn 18!” So we had string trios and string quartets, harp, guitar and all eleven of us children played the piano to one degree or another. We too performed frequently as a family and traveled with BYU Education Week as well. Mother sang Lullabies and Dad sang old western songs; we sang about “I love the dishes” and “I love you, you, you!” When we had arguments we had to sing to each other: “I Want to be Kind to Everyone”...sometimes with a grimace and a frown on our faces until we started to laugh. So, music was part of my heritage for generations.  

You might be asking at this point: “But what about this Hymn Program? How did it come about? It is a story of inspiration and hard work but most of all it is a story of love. My Grandma had spent nearly a decade of her life serving missions for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with my Grandpa, Verlan Andersen throughout Argentina, Peru and the Mexico Area. As she served and traveled, she lamented that so few congregations could enjoy the blessing of having piano accompaniment as they sang hymns. She noticed that though many chapels had pianos they were often unused. Stakes with thousands of members often had no one who could play the hymns. Grandma knew the joy that comes as families, friends and congregations join together in singing the hymns accompanied by the piano or organ. So, a desire was born in her to help create a curriculum that would enable students to learn to play the piano, using the hymns as the foundation for the program. 

The Lord answered her earnest prayers and sent talented musicians to assist her. This program was used to teach hundreds of children and adults throughout the world to play the hymns – in just weeks. She saw the profound joy it brought to these students, and she felt the power and spirit it brought to everyone in the meetings.

While my grandparents were serving in the Church Area Presidency in Mexico, my parents with their eleven children volunteered for a service mission at the Latter-day Saint Church High School, Benemerito de las Americas (now the Mexico City MTC).Part of that mission included my mother teaching the newly created piano hymn course to hundreds of students at the High School. 

Ten years later, when I was just 14, my eleven-year-old sister and I took this same hymn course along with several keyboards down to Mexico City to continue this same work. Over the course of a summer, we taught a number of students how to play the hymns. We saw the joy it brought them, no matter their age, to learn to play these beloved hymns. This was a dream they never thought possible; having access to a piano in their home, as well as the opportunity to learn how to create beautiful music with that piano! I loved my experience and felt changed by what I saw and felt there. Twenty-years later, I felt a great desire to re-make and re-create this incredible curriculum my grandma had made so many years ago. With a Masters’ degree in Piano Performance and Pedagogy, and decades of experience teaching piano, I wanted to bring the skills and knowledge I had gained and the gifts I had been given, and offer what I could to continue my Grandma’s legacy. You see, I am my grandma’s namesake. I have felt her with me in this beautiful journey. She has helped and inspired me, giving me courage and insight when I was ready to quit. Though I was one of 104 grandchildren, I had felt incredible love and support from my grandma in my musical endeavors. She would often ask me to just sit and play for her while she sat back and listened for hours. I loved doing it because it brought her so much joy and I felt so close to her.

I have felt that love and support in the process of preparing this curriculum for many, many more to be benefitted by. It is just as she would have wanted – through the internet there is no limit to the number of people who can experience the joy of playing the hymns of Zion, and in blessing others to feel the power of those hymns as they do so.  I hope you enjoy being part of this miracle!

The Musical Mustard Seed

Marilyn Pratt

(edited by Shirley Washenko)

When our Savior was here on the earth, he taught that from small, good and worthy things proceed that which is great. He used the smallest of the small, one grain of mustard seed to help make his concepts clear.

There was a once a woman who, armed only with her faith, her love of the Lord, her love of a people and a desire to come to their aid when she saw a need, a musical need, sought to make possible the impossible.  Many wards and branches in Latin America had no one to play the piano for singing the hymns of Zion. This lovely lady with help and support from many other dedicated and caring people began an inspired task. Latin American saints, with limited resources and not much chance for formal musical training, needed some accompaniment for the singing in their meetings. Many unused piano existed in their ward houses.

In process of time, this sister receiveda little yellow song book from another musical sister who had compiled and arranged hymns with just a melody line and simple chords, so her sons could play them in the mission field. This sister learned to play the hymns in the book herself, having had only a little bit of  violin study in her life. Inspired by how hymn playing had become possible even to her, she  shared her new found skill with some of the people in the Buenos Aires Area office while she and her husband were volunteer service missionaries.

Two and one-half years after this event, our heroine and her wonderful companion were called to serve in Peru. She recognized a great need in that area for some music education for those people. Her soul was “harrowed up.”

When she returned to Salt Lake City, she approached the Church music committee and found that although they were sympathetic, they were in the middle of preparing a churchwide, simplified music program and were unable to help her at that time,

When her husband was called as a General Authority to the Mexico, Central America Area a short time later, she found that as many as 85% to 95% of the wards and branches had no one to play the piano or organ for their meetings. Some entire stakes had not a single pianist. She realized that if a program was going to be developed, it would have to be done locally. She immediately began to study and pray about the problem. She knew a simplified hymn teaching aid and instructions on how to play the piano was the answer to the problem. The way was opened. In her own words, “Whenever I needed help, someone always seemed to be there with the knowledge and the skills necessary.” A Relief Society President organized classes to test ideas. The wife of a Benemerito School official learned the technique herself and then taught her own children. A Mission President’s wife tested the program in her area. The wife of a U.S. Embassy employee was called to serve on the Area Music Committee. She was a piano teacher and helped with the first teacher instructions. The wife of a veterinary student gave days and nights of her time typing in words and arranging some of the hymns.

At last, the first teaching aids were completed for distribution. The music was hand written and a little difficult to read. But in every Stake Conference where it was presented, it was received with great enthusiasm. More than 500 teaching aids were distributed in five months. It became clear, as our heroine said, “We realized that a more easily read and larger teaching aid was needed.” And again, the way was opened.

A short-term service missionary, who had a degree in music helped refine and improve what had been done. She suggested that they secure a computer to write the music and print it. With the help of her husband, a computer was obtained and after much trial and error and testing, a program was developed that worked. Now the challenge was to transfer it into the computer, another essential step in creating a more readable, simplified hymn teaching aid.

A sister missionary with health problems who had been transferred to the area office had unusual talents for layout and paste-up. With her skill, the music began to take on a professional appearance.

At the same time, a new upgraded teaching aid with simple, clear training instructions was started. Training instructions were written and re-written to simplify the steps needed to learn to play the hymns. A Latin brother who had learned the Suzuki piano method carefully studied the material and found errors in the language. Many corrections and additions were laboriously made to the teaching material, with the help of dedicated area office staff members and volunteers. On February 2, 1988, the last corrections were made at 5:30 in the evening. The next morning the Distribution Center had them ready to go to the printer.

Ten days later a call from Salt Lake City informed them that 25 copies of the Basic Music Program was being sent. Then they heard the surprising and great news! It was their own music program, in English! The church had made copies of it and were pleased with the program and recognized the need of two music programs in the church.

Now the challenge: How to get the program out to the people. Instructors needed to be trained and sent to the missions and stakes. Immediately a video cassette training tape was being prepared so that interested members could learn the program by themselves, then teach others. Music excitement spread throughout entire area. An excited Bishop, after one week of intensive training, in conducting Sacrament meeting, announced the opening song and with joy and enthusiasm then ran to the piano to accompany the music for his beloved and surprised congregation. Another excited brother played the music at his daughter’s baptism. Young children as well as older adults took advantage of the opportunity to learn to play sacred music.

Hidden talents, as the mustard seed, began to grow, ultimately blessing congregations all over the world – from Mexico, to Ukraine; from the Philippines to Africa. Individuals all over the world were filled with joy as they expressed their love for the Lord in music, and enabled worship for countless others whom they accompanied.

The hero of this story is Sister Shirley Andersen. She said, “I have a testimony that I know the Lord wanted this work accomplished and that many willing and dedicated people were inspired to share their talents in accomplishing this marvelous work,”

It all started with a loving sister and a little yellow hymn book that moved a mountain of musical darkness and caused a fruitful tree to begin to grow in this beautiful land.

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