As a toddler, Gary Toops liked hitting the piano keys and the sounds of his percussionistic effort.
Joseph Miguel decided, since his 3-year-old grandson insisted on constantly striking the ebony-and-ivory keys on a toy piano, he should make music and not noise. He taught the boy simple melodies.
This beginning took Toops from fledgling explorer of music to professional proficiency as a pianist and organist, a career in music education at Mt. San Antonio College and conducting music at Southern California churches.
And just for fun, the only child of Josephine and Orris Toops will stage the "Music for Ghoulies, Ghosties and Goblins" concert at 8 p.m. Oct. 29 in the Mt. San Antonio College Performing Arts Center's recital hall. Tickets are $12 for general admission and $9 for seniors, students and children under 12. Seating is limited. For information and tickets, call (909) 468-4050.
Marjie Toops, his wife and a Spanish teacher at Irvine's University High School, suggested the name for the concert, which celebrates one of her husband's favorite holidays and gives children and adults a chance to enjoy both Halloween and music in the same setting.
"The organ has always had an association with Halloween, partly because of Lon Chaney's `Phantom of the Opera' film," Gary Toops said. "We started doing Ghoulies, Ghosties and Goblins eight years ago to promote the college's new performing arts center. We'd previously done other concerts in the lecture hall in Building 26. Acoustically, it was not good for music. It's a lecture hall, not a concert hall."
Traditional, classical and sacred music concerts Toops and his students, sometimes with special guest artists, were staged at Pomona's Pilgrim Congregational Church, a sanctuary with a "magnificent pipe organ, great acoustics and the talents of Frank Cummings, who was the music director and organist at the church until his death," Toops said. The community college's cultural center opened new doors for music and the arts as entertainment, he added.
"The first Halloween concert here was called Music for Saints and Sinners. It evolved into Music for Ghoulies, Ghosties and Goblins. We have a good time with it and make it a family affair," Toops said.
"We encourage audience members to come in costume, although there can be no masks for safety's sake. We have a costume parade on stage for everyone," he said. "The program changes from year to year. We do things that are spooky, but not real scary."
Toops has been fascinated with music since his grandfather taught him to play little melodies on a toy piano at age 3. He began formal lessons at age 7.
"I remember begging my folks to get a real piano," said Toops, who quickly tired of play pianos and wanted to really play the piano.
"I also wanted a television. Mom asked if I wanted a piano or a TV," he said, admitting he paused to contemplate which was most important in his young mind. "My mother said your father wants a TV, too, so tell him you want the piano."
It didn't take long for young Toops to move from playing music with one finger during Sunday school to 10-digit talents prompting church officials to name him principal pianist for the choir when he was only 13.
"I think this sparked my interest in church music and subsequently the organ," he said. "My first professional church job was for a little Southern Baptist church in San Lorenzo. I got paid a whole $5 a week. But the church was so poor, they couldn't afford to pay me two years later.
"I volunteered to do it for free, but the pastor said no," he continued. "He said it was a matter of integrity. I understood, because my faith was an important part of who I was."
Born in Oakland and raised in Oakland and Alameda, Toops maintained his interest in music throughout high school and kept a church pianist job. When he graduated from Alameda High School, however, he had to make a hard choice about his future direction.
Orris Toops, an accountant at the Alameda Naval Air Station, and his homemaker wife, Josephine, had grown up in the Great Depression. His father worried about job security, and his parents didn't think music offered steady hope of either working or being secure.
"Music was a creative outlet that really appealed to me, but I faced pressure from my folks to go into a technical field," the younger Toops recalled. "Sputnik had gone up in 1958 and there was growing emphasis on jobs in the space industry. I'd done well in math and science, so I could handle technical stuff if I had to enter such a field.
"I admit I was a little apprehensive about trying to make it on the concert stage, but education had always fascinated me, too. I thought I could teach music and continue to play," he said, sighing again in remembered relief about finding a compromise solution to his parents' concerns and his own desires.
"My folks finally accepted teaching music was reasonable," said the man who earned a bachelor's degree in music at UC Berkeley and a master's of music degree in organ performance from the University of the Pacific before joining the Mt. SAC faculty in 1969.
He taught part-time for only a few months and was offered a full-time teaching position in March 1970. His father died suddenly of a heart attack shortly after this and he never physically saw how successful his teacher/musician son would become.
"I think, however, that he spiritually let go, because he wasn't worried about me making it in life and work," Toops said. "He probably felt I was able to make it on my own professionally and take care of myself and a family."
Gary Toops served as chairman of Mt. SAC's music department from the late 1970s to the early 1980s and again for four years in the 1990s. He loves teaching more because of the interaction with students. He now teaches music theory, music history and organ.
He stages a springtime solo concert on organ and with guest instrumentalists (one year, his students played the piano concertos from a variety of classical composers and he played all the other orchestral parts on the organ).
He also coordinates the annual student/faculty music department showcase concert at Mt. SAC and serves as a substitute organist for numerous Southern California churches.