Tom was Born

William Thomas McKinley was born on December 9, 1938′ in New Kensington, Pennsylvania. He was the firstborn son Daniel Edward and Ellen Lee McKinley. Tom’s upbringing was rather less glamorous than the great masters of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but no less inundated with music. His father, a salesman, managed to find time to sing in amateur vaudeville acts with his wife, who would either tap dance or improvise American hymn-like tunes on the piano.

Early Exposer to Music (age 0-5)

Tom’s earliest exposure to music came from listening to the radio, the primary form of entertainment in those days. Indeed, his earliest memories revolve around listening to the big bands and providing percussive accompaniment using sticks, spoons or whatever else was available. Seeing this obvious musical interest, his mother decided he should receive drum lessons, which he accordingly began at age three and continued until age five. During this time, Tom began to visualize himself as a successful drummer in a big band, hoping that his famous namesake, the jazz drummer Ray McKinley, would help pave the way.

Time to start the Piano (age 5)

When Tom reached the age of five, his mother decided it would be more advantageous for him to study the family’s main instrument, the piano. The drum lessons were discontinued and he began to work with a local amateur piano teacher, Adelaide Weiss. While his experience with Weiss was valuable in that it exposed him to some of the works of the classical and romantic masters, it was insufficient as she was only able to provide him with the most rudimentary of musical skills and she taught him nothing about the music that truly captivated him—jazz. As a result, Tom was forced to do a great deal of work on his own, including teaching himself how to sight-read and, more importantly, how to improvise.

Apr 15, 1951

Daily Life of Tom (age 11)

6:00 am

go to school

6:30 am

Begin Class

3:00 PM

leave school and head to Audrey Ann Dancing School

7:00 PM

Play a gig

9:00 PM

Get home and start practicing improv

Start Saving for College (Age 9-13)

By the age of nine or ten, Tom’s playing had advanced to the point where he was able to play in local dance bands. Four nights a week after school and during the day on Saturdays, he would play at the Audrey Ann Dancing Studio. At age eleven he joined the national musicians’ union, the American Federation of Musicians, and thus had the distinction of being their youngest member. By the age of twelve, he was playing with performers four times his age and earning enough money “to make a living.”‘ At his mother’s request, Tom put much of this money aside for college.

April 11th, 1956

Tom and Marleen Get Married (age 18)

Tom Applies to College (age 18)

During his senior year, Torn prepared for college auditions. From the outset Tom based his college plans on those of his mentor, Johnny Costa—this included his first choice of school, his course of study, and even the teacher he would study with, if accepted. Therefore, he applied to Carnegie Tech to study piano during his first two years and then composition with Nikolai Lopatnikoff during the last two. In preparation, Tom left his teacher of twelve years, Adelaide Weiss, and studied with “the Hayes sisters,” both of whom were graduates of Carnegie Tech.’

Tom’s recollection of the actual audition is quite vivid. He began with Chopin’s Fantasie Impromptu in CI minor, followed by Bach’s C major Invention, after which the jury told him to stop. Feeling that the audition was not going particularly well, he suddenly decided to change his approach. “I can do something else,” he told them, “I can make up anything.” He remembers Lopatnikoff or one of the others on the panel replying, “Well, make up a piece, then. Let’s hear you do it.” For the next fifteen minutes Tom improvised in the style of Ravel, during which “Lopatnikoff’s eyes went up.” Shortly afterward, Tom was admitted as a piano performance major for the 1956-57 academic year.

“You know, you could have been a great concert pianist. You have everything it takes except one thing—your heart. There’s an extra spark when you make up your own music. …You should be a composer.”

-Leonard Eisner (to Tom)

“My earliest mentors at Carnegie Tech did not believe in ‘cerebral’ music. They taught that the mystical union of mind with spirit is paramount to the creative psyche, and they helped me to see the line of descent from the great masters to the present. When this heritage was coupled with my purely American jazz spirit, it was clear how my musical instincts would be revealed, and how my “Americanness” would manifest itself from the duality I traversed during these years.” -William Thomas Mckinley

May 3, 1960

William Thomas McKinley Graduates from Carnegie Institute of Technology

Tom’s First String Quartet No. 1 1959

(age 21)

Learn about the Piece

In the meantime, Lopatnikoff provided Tom with what Marlene has described as a “quintessential foundation in the grand European manner”‘²—teaching him score reading, harmony, and orchestration. Tom also adds that “he instilled within me a sense of historical identity connecting with the big stream of European music ranging from Bach to Bartok.”¹³Lopatnikoff also taught Tom about the principles of organic musical development, similar to those used by Beethoven, Brahms, and Hindemith.” In short, he believed that music should be improvised from a spontaneously composed original idea—a philosophy which Tom was able to blend with his own jazz influences and reflect in the pieces written during this time. These were the String Quartet No. 1 (IV.C.1), written in 1959 and played during Tom’s senior year by the Phillips Quartet, and the Adagio for Violin and Piano (VI.F.1), written in 1960 and also played that year by Tom and violinist Joe Bishkoff. He also began work on a symphony, but never completed it. (The sketches, written in a notebook in piano short-score, have since been lost.) All of these works were in the neo-classic tradition, patterned after Lopatnikoff’s own style. Since he was also listening to a great deal of Copland at the time, the works were also infused with a strong, syncopated feeling—no doubt Tom’s jazz background played a role in this as well. Of these early works Tom writes:

William Thomas Mckinley was Born