By Aidan Farrell
I started lessons with Paul when I was five years old. My mom Ruth would drive my older sister Cara and me to his house where we would all take turns having lessons, my sister, my mom, and I. I remember sitting in his front room waiting for my sister to finish her lesson so that I could start. I asked him once if I could play his piano with my feet and he said yes.
I took private music lessons with Paul for approximately 15 years. The first portion of our time together lessons were had at his basement studio on Waterloo. Later on, when my younger brother Eli took up guitar lessons with Paul we arranged for the weekly lesson to be held at our house. The trade was a homemade dinner from my second Mom Cindy, complete with good company and wine, followed by lessons for me and Eli, which Paul graciously offered at a discounted price. Those nights that Paul spent at our house are the best memories. I have a vivid memory of him bouncing on an exercise ball in our kitchen, with a bread basket worn as a hat on his head, while playing the salt and pepper mills like they were shakers. My stomach hurt from laughing that night. We would always share so much joy and laughter together, and then we would make beautiful music, I am so grateful for those precious memories.
The years of learning with Paul were absolutely amazing and integral to my development as a musician and person. Paul was not only an amazing teacher who taught me how to trust my instincts and explore unknown territory, but he was also kind and endlessly supportive. When I started experimenting with singing and songwriting he was absolutely over the moon. He would sit on the couch next to me listening to all my creations beaming from ear to ear while I played. When I would finish he would congratulate me with exuberant fervor and we would discuss the music together. He always gently offered me ideas and perspectives to evolve which enabled me to continuously expand in my own creativity. He never forced me to learn something I didn’t want to learn, only ever gentle nudges in new directions.
Whenever I would want to learn a certain song I would bring a to him and watch him lift it by ear. I remember watching him do it and felt that I was in the presence of a wizard, who was magically pulling music out of the ethers and putting it onto paper. I was right in thinking so. I remember being full of awe at the mystical skills he possessed to pull sound from distant realms into our present reality, whether lifting, learning, or creating. Years later every time I lift a or write a song, or create any melodies of my own, I think of Paul and the foundation he lay with me so that I could eventually wield some of the magic that he did.
The year I went off to Humber College in Toronto to earn my Bachelor of Music degree specializing in Jazz Voice, we stayed in touch meeting up when I was home visiting to catch up on all the new things happening in life for both of us. He would send me messages and check in on me over my years away from home. I always felt supported by Paul. He always went above and beyond to be there for me as a teacher, friend, and Uncle type figure in my life. He even played in the rhythm section with my Dad Murphy on drums, and family friend Mark Branscombe on guitar, for a school talent show in grade 9. My two friends, Natasha Pheko, Katie Piper, and I created a singing group called “The Glossettes” and we covered Motown tunes. Although we didn’t win the talent show, the performance was obviously, a smashing success.
Paul performed an improvised piece on the piano at my mother’s funeral which I honestly can’t really remember. But my Dad told me it sounded just like her. The last piece of silk screen batik piece of art she ever made she gave to Paul, it was a tree of life and he hung it in his house. For a period of time my grandparents, Caroline and Norb MacDonald paid for my music lessons so my grandparents and Paul had a standing monthly dinner for many years. My Grandpa Norb and he got along famously, two of the most joyful people I have ever known. When my Grandmother Caroline passed away when I was sixteen, Paul accompanied me at my grandmother’s funeral. We played the classic jazz standard “I’ll Be Seeing You” which I had performed at my school talent show to the delight of my Grandmother a few years prior. She sent the youtube link out to everyone she knew. When performing the song with Paul at the celebration of life I had to stop partway through, overwhelmed with emotion, Paul waited too, patiently as he always did, until I was ready to keep going. Paul was never one for rushing through life-even the difficult parts. Where ever he went, he was truly there.
Paul was a part of our family, in all its many iterations. He came to my Dad (Murphy Farrell) and second Mom’s (Cindy Schreyer) wedding in 2019. The last time I saw him was at my backyard graduation ceremony when I graduated with my Master of Arts from York University specializing in music composition. I graduated in the early days of COVID and therefore had no convocation ceremony or a big party in Toronto where I had graduated. To make up for the lackluster end to a greatly challenging three years we threw a backyard graduation ceremony where I had the honour of thanking all my guests personally, for all the ways they had helped me arrive at this great achievement. I got to tell Paul all the ways he had taught and inspired me. I truly don’t know what would have happened without Paul or where I would be now. He accompanied me in all my college auditions, both live and recorded. He was there every step of the way. Helping me and supporting me, in ways I couldn’t even fully appreciate at the time. Here is an excerpt of the thank you speech I shared with him on that day.
“Thank you all for coming out tonight to celebrate my Master’s Graduation convocation and celebration. It’s been a long road and I am so happy to be able to see you all here tonight and to be able to celebrate with you.
I want to start out with some thank yous.
Firstly, I would like to thank my good friend and teacher for 20 years… Paul Plimely. Paul thank you for being here tonight. Thank you for encouraging my creativity from day one. Thank you for always providing a space where I could explore music in a free and uninhibited way. Thank you for encouraging me to improvise and for celebrating my free-form compositions, the wilder the better…Paul’s teaching method for any of you who don’t know, for me, went a little like this: I would play a free improvisation, and he would give me a big star in my notebook alongside a comment, often with quite vivid imagery, describing what he thought of the piece. The comment I remember most clearly was that one of my compositions “sounded like a box with straws sticking out of it and jello oozing out of the straws.”
Thank you Paul for nurturing creativity and composition with me in our lessons. I cherish everything that you taught me to this day. When it comes to composing, I do not feel that I am completely responsible for what is written, rather I feel that I channel the infinite creative energy that moves through and around us at all times. I thank you Paul for teaching me to engage with this creative energy, and for showing me how to bring it into physical reality.
Most importantly, thank you for letting me play your beautiful grand piano with my feet when I was 6. Your teachings will be with me forever and were the beginning of a long journey of music learning which has resulted to this day. Thank you for everything you have given me.“
Paul was unafraid of that which could not be measured. Of that which could not be defined. He celebrated a dimension where all things known cease to act the way they should, where rules start falling away, and things start dissolving into something much greater than they first appear. He leaped joyously into the swirling mystery of the unknown, the void of all things, and the birthplace of all things. In a world where so many of us cling feverishly and frantically to what we think we understand, this trust in uncertainty is a rare thing. Paul is a rare soul. Anyone who heard his music or played with him knew this. Anyone who was ever taught by him knew this. Anyone who ever had a conversation with him or shared a meal or a joke with him knew this too. I’ve truly never met anyone like him, and I know I never will.
Paul laid a pathway for me, brick by brick, to walk home to myself through the glorious act of making music without borders. He offered me a warm and humorous invitation to explore a world of total freedom. As I age I see more and more the treasure in his teachings and the gifts that he gave me. In the deeper exploration of my own practice as well as becoming a teacher myself, I see now how deeply we as adults struggle to create free of self-judgment. How with time and age, we turn our backs on the child within us and forget how to truly play. There are times when a stark blank page or a crisp white canvas can truly seem like the most terrifying thing in the world. Nothing but a harrowing mirror staring back at us asking us to show ourselves. What I didn’t realize at the time, during all those years of lessons with Paul, was that I was being taught how to trust myself. And there is truly no greater gift one can have than to trust in your own self. The echoes of this teaching gifted to me by Paul reverberate through my life, awakening the mundane into a miraculous celebration filled with rainbow light and beautiful music.
