About Me

My name is Bonnie teVelde, and I think that in order to understand who I am, and how passionate I am about music education, you need to know where I come from, and why I love teaching music so much! I really believe that I was not only born with a genetic gift, Perfect Absolute Pitch (PAP), but I was blessed to have parents that instinctively gave me the absolutely perfect environment to foster my gift. Without my parents, and other events that happened in my life that acted as catalysts, awaking and refining my natural talents and abilities.

My Parents

Frederik Boessenkool and Anna Jantina teVelde emigrated to the United States from The Netherlands about 2 years before I was born. They were married in New York, and came to California in 1959. I was born shortly after that, in 1960. The first piece of furniture they bought, when they got to California in a car they bought for $90, was an organ. That tells me how much of a priority it was, to them, to have music in their lives.

(When I hear people tell me they don't have room for a piano, in a house that has TV's, gaming systems, and tons of other furniture, I have to think, "hmmm... why is music simply not a priority for them?" After that, I ask myself, "what can I do to help these people get that music is as important to a gifted child as a bed to sleep in, or air to breathe!" In my opinion, music is so much more important than a big screen TV, or a new computer.)

When my mother was pregnant with me, she would listen to hours and hours of classical music, and she even went as far as to put headphones on her stomach so I could hear the music more clearly. What a gift she gave me, just by doing that one thing!

My father, Frederik, was born with Perfect Absolute Pitch... a trait he often exhibited by playing any song I would come home from school singing. I was always amazed at how he could play anything by ear, even though he was dutch and had never heard most of the songs I came home with before.

As a baby, my parents often played organ with me on their lap in front of them. My mother could read music, and played rather slowly and methodically. My father would jubilantly play his own tunes, and improvise different melodies for hours. I remember my mother telling my father "honey, get off of the freeway", when my father would get stuck improvising on a particular theme for too long. He would always play joyful tunes, mostly in the key of G-flat, or as he called it "6 molls", which, in Dutch, means "6 flats". My mother and father would dance with me around the living room, singing religious songs from the church hymnal with each other, in harmony.

When I was a toddler, I remember listening to hours of different classical LP records. I would sit on the floor, with my eyes closed, just imagining different scenarios and stories to go with the music.

At 2 1/2, I was starting to reach up to the organ on my tip-toes. I can't remember a time that I didn't want to play and sing. I would stand in the center of the isle at church, and conduct the choir from there every chance I could get.

I took my first "official" organ lesson when I was 3 1/2. The teacher was a strict church lady, who picked a method I would now choose for a 6 year old, for me. I was expected to learn to read the 10 notes of "C-position" in my first week. Since I couldn't read English yet, (I spoke Dutch at home, and didn't learn to speak English until Kindergarten.) it was an incredibly difficult experience for me, and I still remember feeling totally overwhelmed. I learned on a 3 manual organ (3 rows of keys with different sounds on each), but I was not permitted to touch the top 2 rows, with the pretty sounds, because I was not good enough.

Even though I wanted to play so badly, and had begged for lessons, I quickly got very discouraged. I heard my mother get the news, every week, that I wasn't good enough and I probably didn't have any natural talent, unlike her daughters, who were doing really well. After 1 1/2 years of getting more and more disappointed, my mother finally put an end to the pain and took me out of lessons.

I was sick a lot at a young child, with high fevers, convulsions, and several hospitalizations. Even though I had "failed" in lessons, I continued to play the songs in that same lesson book, over and over, and eventually taught myself to read music quite well. My father had a master's degree in horticulture from The Netherlands, and he was building his own landscape company in the greater Los Angeles area.

The Accident that Changed Everything

My mother, sister, brother, and I would go to the job site, wherever my father was working, and bring him lunch during the summer. We would play on the job site while all of the workers were gone getting lunch. One day, my sister and I were playing a game of hide & seek, and a worker came back from lunch early. He had been drinking beer, probably all morning, and was drunk at the time. He jumped on a tractor, and put it in reverse instead of forward gear. The bucket of the tractor hit and knocked over the wall I was hiding behind, and the tractor ended up crushing me.

I don't remember much of that event, except that I woke up in the back of my parent's station wagon on the way to the hospital. My mother was a Registered Nurse, and she was telling me I would be ok. I remember telling her I was ok with dying, and that I was sure I would see her in heaven someday. I don't remember feeling any pain, and I felt very calm.

The short of it is that I lived. I had severe crush injuries in my lower body, internal injuries, and a broken leg. I ended up being in the hospital for 3 months, in traction, and in a body cast for another 3 months. The man that was driving the tractor thought he had killed me, and drove my father's work truck off of a cliff on Angeles Crest Highway. His drinking and subsequent guilt cost him his life, and his 6 children, their father. (This is one of many reasons I am so passionate about helping kids that are affected by someone else's drug use and drinking.)

Unexpected Consequences

As a result of the accident, I received a small settlement from the insurance company. My father had been destroyed financially, because of the accident repercussions and my injuries, so there was no way my parents could afford music lessons for me. My parents petitioned the court to allow them to have access to some of my settlement funds, so that I could have music lessons. The judge granted their request, with a few requirements as to how the money was to be used:

1. They could only purchase a new, high quality instrument.
2. They could only enroll me in an accredited school with the best, certified instructors.

All of a sudden, instead of a grumpy, mean teacher who taught out of her house, I got the best that money could buy in Los Angeles... which was a mecca of wonderful teachers! I chose to play accordion, and got a brand new accordion! I was enrolled in an incredibly fun school, that actually had a float for the accordion students to sit on in local parades! They had an accordion band, and events, like guild, where I could perform and win trophies!

I got so good at accordion, I auditioned to play for a professional square dancing troupe, at the age of 12. I got the job, and played at the Hollywood Palladium, on TV for the first time! These were the days of Lawrence Welk, and accordion was pretty cool... well, maybe a little old fashioned. I was a little older than Weird Al was when he learned accordion!

My mother had a very bad heart, and was experiencing severe chest pain in the pollution of Los Angeles, so our family moved to Santa Rosa. I had added flute to my repertoire of instruments, and then piccolo and oboe. I loved to play organ, and was again teaching myself songs. But there was nothing I wanted to play more than the piano. Because good, Dutch Reformed Church members only played organ, not piano, it had not been an option to play piano when I was younger. Now that my parents had changed churches, and piano was allowed...even encouraged, I was obsessed with learning how to play it. I would go into the band practice rooms at lunch time, and play and play and play. I would listen to other students and teachers play, and try to figure out popular songs on my own by getting the sheet music, and figuring it out.

My First Competition

I found out about a church music competition, and I decided that I wanted to enter. I was such a quiet kid, that when I tried out for choir in 5th grade, the teacher couldn't believe that a child who never spoke more than 5 words all year, could actually sing. But... I decided to learn a popular song by Barry Manilow, which I could eventually play and sing. I never told my parents that I was entering the contest, and I got a ride from my friend to get there. I ended up winning 1st place, and I was told that I had to represent the area in a county-wide competition in a month. I practiced another song like crazy, and got myself to the second level of competition. When I won 1st place again, I was told that, in six months, I would be competing at the State level for an audience of 5,400 people! Talk about motivation!

At that point, I realized this was really serious, and I should probably tell my parents about it. I didn't realize how proud of me they would be... My mother took me to the piano store, and bought me a new Mason & Hamlin console piano. (My sister still has that piano). They got me an amazing teacher, and I spent the next six months, including my whole summer vacation at age 15, preparing a solo for the competition!

It was the most fun and the most purpose I have ever had in my life. For someone who was absolutely the quietest person, anywhere, to play at this level was an unbelievably, almost out-of-body, experience. I ended up not winning the competition, but it took me to a level of playing that I never dreamed I would be able to do.

The rest of the story will be finished over the next few months.

Bonnie :)