File: oconnorfrank-oh-musicinhome_M.mp3
Speakers:
FO – Frank O'Connor
KP – Curator Ken Perlman
F0: A family of ten and everybody played. In the hard times in the 30s, we had about one mouth organ, an old organ that was pretty weazey, one fiddle my dad played and he wouldn't allow any of the rest of us to touch it for fear if we broke it we wouldn't have another one so that's what we went through you know. But it used to be a scramble for the ten of us. We all played something, so everybody took their turn or whatever.
KP: How was it decided who got to play when?
FO: Oh, devious methods throughout, mostly you know. You kind of fool somebody into thinking well you were goin' outside, and you'd go down in the front room and grabbed the fiddle and played a tune, you know, that type of thing. But as I say, it's a great family that has that many people - There were 12 of us. My dad played the violin, my mother played the piano, so the whole group played. It's a great way to raise a family. Music is a wonderful thing when you have a lot of people interested in it.
KP: What does music do for a family?
FO: Oh, it unites the family, keeps them together and there's something to do. When you have a radio, you can take a radio in the car and go off by yourself, but if you're going to play music as a group you've got to be together. It was great in that way for our family; of course in the 30s there was nothing else to do but play music. At that time if you played the mouth organ, you were a star, especially in the 30s when there was no money – nothing: only what you made yourself.
