Memories of my musical mentor, Jay-Martin Pinner, are filled with happiness, laughter, and learning.

Sure, there were unfun times too, as I learned the art of violin playing, teaching, conducting, and repairing instruments from him, but the happy and tender times dominate my heart when I remember “Mr. Pinner”.

I had opportunity over many years to focus on his face and hands in his Bob Jones Junior and Senior High orchestras, at private lessons, during BJU string pedagogy classes and summer music camps, both as a student and then a colleague. His thick glasses that tended to slide down his nose during performances. His blue eyes that would get wide with excitement, tear up in tender moments, twinkle with humor, or wink at me as I marched out on the stage to perform. Those large, capable hands with long fingers, the nails kept very short. The class ring with a large blue stone on his right hand and the wedding ring with beautifully etched edges on his left.

My first memory of Jay was in 1980, when I, as a ten-year-old violinist, attended the very first music camp at BJU, which he and his wife, Dianne began. His excitement in telling us we were Haydn’s Henchmen was catching!

My real experience with him started my seventh-grade year, when from the very back of the second violin section I began watching those large expressive hands conduct. I loved orchestra and I loved Mr. Pinner! He made me feel special, even though I wasn’t exactly the best violinist in his group; I remember his commenting on how the sweater I was wearing complimented my face. I also remember the time he told me I was getting a “noon report” (the junior high equivalent to demerits: a forfeiture of going to the ballfield during lunchbreak) for being late to orchestra. I am sure I deserved it, but since I had never had a noon report before, I asked him to have mercy. And his soft heart relented.

For four years of high school I spent 7:55-8:50am every school day discovering the joys of making music in Academy orchestra. I focused on Mr. Pinner’s face and hands, learning when they were asking for loud or soft, staccato or legato, faster or slower, and all kinds of subtle nuances. And how I loved playing in that group! And how I loved Mr. Pinner!

Mr. Pinner also taught us how to conduct. Those hands would grab my hands as my arms were meandering around the conducting pattern, and then after I got the basics, would help me to feel the style and cues. I had the privilege to conduct the orchestra my senior year in the first movement of St. Paul’s Suite by Holst.

Jay showed concern for us as individuals. I walked across campus from the dining common to orchestra every morning. One very cold January morning Mr. Pinner loaned me his very large furry gloves after I had arrived with stiff, frigid hands. During my 11th grade year, my grandfather passed away suddenly right before an orchestra concert. Jay’s hand rested on my shoulder as he took time before the dress rehearsal to express his concern and prayers for me. And at the end of my 12th grade year, as I was sitting at the piano in the orchestra room, tuning my violin, he squatted beside me and expressed his sympathy in the death of my grandmother.

The orchestra room was on the second floor of the high school gym, and during my first years of orchestra, the carpet and walls were what Mr. Pinner would call a “puke” green color. Then my whole family helped Jay prepare the room for a much-needed painting and new carpet. The large rehearsal room had both a regular inside stairway, and an outside fire escape stairway. One time after orchestra, as I was leaving by way of the outside stairs, I called a farewell to him, and then the next thing he heard was my falling—all the way down the metal staircase! My thoughts during that noisy ride were first of all to keep hold of my violin case—which I managed to do; and second, to make sure I was in a decent position before Mr. Pinner made it across the room! The door banged open, and his eyes, wide with concern, peered down at me. We gathered my books and I continued on to the next class.

Every Christmas we would have an orchestra banquet, and we loved to decorate the room for the holiday season. One Saturday morning some of us cut down a tree and decorated it in the rehearsal room. When we arrived at orchestra Monday morning there were hundreds of little praying mantises all over the room! (Note: look for insect nests before decorating a live tree!) Orchestra got started a little late that day, after Jay armed a couple guys with vacuum cleaners.

In November of 1984, when I was a 10th grader, our Academy orchestra concert was on presidential election night—Reagan vs. Mondale. Jay knew the only way we would have anyone stay for a reception was to bring a TV to the orchestra room. And from that TV atop the lockers we learned that Reagan won 49 out of 50 states!

For several summers in my high school years I studied with Mr. Pinner privately. During our first couple of lessons my hands were trembling. We met in his home, 6 Faculty Court at BJU. One day his tiny son, Nathan, slipped into the room and began exploring the strings on Jay’s violin. Those great big hands reached tenderly down and scooped Nathan up, while lovingly saying, “No, no!”

In the summer of 1986, when I was 16, I attended the BJU music camp, which was directed by Jay. I operated on sheer willpower however, because I had an undiagnosed case of mono at the time. By Friday mid-morning I was so sick I couldn’t play. Jay found out I hadn’t eaten since lunch Thursday (It took too much energy to walk to the Dining Common!), so he took me to the snack shop, which was right next to Stratton Hall where Dr. Gustafson was directing the orchestra, and bought me toast and apple juice. My hands felt too weak to open the bottle of juice, so he opened it for me. The next week he came to visit me in the hospital.

I also began in the summer of 1987, at age 17, to hang out with Jay in the BJU string instrument repair shop. His hands opened up a new and fascinating world to me as I watched them gluing cracks and rehairing bows. I remember in particular staring at his hands as he showed me the next steps in cutting a new bridge. He was about to hand it to me when he looked at my facial expression and said with a grin, “I’m about to show you that all over again, aren’t I?”

By my senior year in high school I was convinced, after seeing how much fun Mr. Pinner had in conducting, teaching, and repairing, that the Lord wanted me to major in music education. But that thought also scared me silly!

For the next five undergrad years and then two grad years I studied violin and viola privately with Mr. Pinner as a major. I watched his hands demonstrate spiccato (over and over and over!) and other bowing techniques, and guide me in new shifting techniques. Since his hands were so much bigger than mine, his fingers much longer, sometimes I would look wistfully at the fingering those hands had just demonstrated, and remind him that it would never work for me!

During my freshman year, when I was doing my daily “play for Mr. Pinner” before I performed Spanish Dance, he was trying to get me to feel the spirit of the music, so he picked up the letter weight scale from his desk and began playing “the castanets” while he danced around the studio!

Jay had to show great patience with me! And he was so very giving of his time. We were scheduled one 50-minute lesson a week, but my first year or two we had two or three lessons a week. During the summer we often went twice as long as was scheduled. I guess he knew how much I needed help! For instance, another violinist and I were accompanying the University Chorale. Jay and I had been working in the string repair shop and the rehearsal was just across the hall. He knew I was struggling with the rhythm, so he came with me and stood behind me. While I was playing I felt Jay’s hand tapping metronomically on my shoulder in an attempt to help me play rhythmically!

Though most of my lessons were enjoyable, not every moment was fun! I remember well the first time I cried in a lesson. I turned away from Mr. Pinner to hide my tears, and from behind my left shoulder I saw his hand appear, holding a blue kleenex. My struggles with intonation and rhythm, plus my dread of performances guaranteed that was not the only time he handed me a blue kleenex! In fact, I failed my senior recital check (at first…) because of memory slips during the last movement of the Mendelssohn violin concerto. Right after the check Jay and Dianne (his wife, and my other musical mentor!) had me perform it again for them. At the end, Jay said, “Becca! If you can play it by memory while you are bawling, you can certainly do it at your recital!”

Perhaps the most “unfun” time together was second semester of my junior year. My junior recital was coming up, and I was in a very low point emotionally. I was required to, once again, enter the yearly string contest. I had been in the finals the two previous years (performing in Stratton Hall), and really didn’t want to again this year, and the worst thing I could think of was to actually win!, because then I would have to play in front of thousands of people in the Amphitorium. I had been assigned a school instrument to use in a special recital, so, instead of pleasing the Lord by doing “the thing of integrity”, I devised a plan. I used that violin instead of my own (since I was not as used to it), and played as weakly as I dared for the contest.  Mr. Jay-Martin Pinner was not fooled or impressed. Later that week, while in the repair shop with his son Nathan, he asked me, “Why didn’t you use your own violin?” I told him all, and those brows knitted up as he said, “Becca, I cannot tell you what I think about that in front of Nathan! We’ll talk later!” I felt like our relationship was destroyed!

So, either later that day or the next day, I marched into his office and asked if we could have that talk. He shut the door and let me have it! I deserved every bit of it. Even though I felt better when I left, I still felt I had lost his trust. At an opera rehearsal very soon after that, he and I were sitting next to each other in the pit. My pillow (Those were long rehearsals!) fell out from behind my back when I leaned forward, and he quickly reached that long arm down and grabbed the pillow before I could get it. As he put it back in place, he winked at me with a loving smile, and I knew now that I was restored!

We went on many BJU Orchestra tours together. Jay had a way of keeping the whole bus entertained for hours with spontaneous humor. My freshman year we went on a 10-day tour to New England. The last morning I was very sick, and my muscles were in pain. While others were sympathetic, Jay Pinner marched to a nearby store and bought Ben-Gay for me!

Jay had high hopes and dreams, and not all of them turned out exactly as planned. During one orchestra tour, we had a day in Washington, D. C. He carefully planned to take his String Literature class, of which I was a member, to the Smithsonian and the Folger Shakespeare Library to study their collections of string instruments. We marched to the Smithsonian, only to discover that that wing of the building was temporarily closed. So we all headed to the Folger Shakespeare Library, but they said they had no idea what we were talking about, even though the literature for the Library advertised their collection of string instruments.

So then Jay got a great idea, “The Library of Congress has a wonderful collection of music manuscripts. Let’s go there!” If you know anything about the city, you know we were doing quite a bit of walking! As we neared the Library of Congress it became apparent that this too would end in failure—it was surrounded by scaffolding and was closed for renovations. So, we ended up in Grand Central station, with Jay treating the whole class to lunch!

Jay and I continued working together in the string repair shop both school years and summers. I watched and learned as his deft hands took tops off, made new nuts, and put new windings on bows. On long Friday afternoons during the school year, we often shared a bag of barbeque chips. I sometimes made him hot tea, and hot chocolate for myself. One summer day we worked together all day, then we both played a recording session all evening. The next day we worked again in the shop together, taking a break in the afternoon to march upstairs to his studio and have a lesson together! He was apologizing for my being stuck with him so much. I loved it!

One late Friday afternoon, I was changing the blade on an exacto knife, and suddenly the blade was sticking in one side of my finger and out the other. I was by myself, and I knew I was in trouble. So I walked across the hall to where Jay was working on the harpsichord, and as I was telling him what I had done, I slid down the wall. He grabbed me, shoved me into a chair, and pushed my head down into my lap.

One summer afternoon we were gluing a top back on a bass. That demands quick work, muscle, and at least four hands! Jay was holding the ribs in place while I applied each clamp. This all has to be done before the glue cools and hardens. We ended up all in a tangle, like the game of Twister, my head and shoulder under his armpit. While he held on and I tightened clamps, he said, “I hope we’ve used our RollOn today!”

I had begun at age 17 to help the Pinners with the BJU summer music camps (one week of junior orchestra, one week of senior orchestra). I learned so very much from both of them! We were a team for many years. Jay could keep sixty junior campers engaged for hours. He was extremely gifted at making rehearsals fun and productive. Of course, not all the laughs he caused were planned. One time I was helping in the back of the junior orchestra while he conducted rehearsal on the Stratton Hall stage. All of a sudden those eyes got very large and desperate-looking as he realized he was falling off the stage. His hands were grasping at the air as he, in slow motion, descended to floor level.

Another time, since the junior orchestra was playing, among others, a cowboy piece, Jay encouraged the kids to wear a bandana or tie it around their scroll when they performed it. So during the concert, when I realized that after the cowboy piece he had forgotten to remove his very large red bandana hanging out of his back pocket (remember, that’s the side the audience sees of a conductor), I began surreptitiously trying to get his attention. When I finally did, only after he had finished the next piece—a totally non-cowboy classical piece—his eyes got very large and concerned as he jerked his red bandana, still waving at the audience, out of his pocket.

I quickly looked out the back window to make sure there were still lights on in the Pinner’s house, then called Mr. Pinner, sobbing. He came right over and … pronounced it still playable!! Believe it or not, I played my recital with that hole in my violin, then Jay helped me send it off to be repaired. By the way, when it returned, you could barely see where the repair was!

It was not until I was in grad school that I owned a computer. I had much to learn, and Jay was way ahead of me. He was already using computer programs to publish and sell his wonderful hymn arrangements. I remember him, as he was helping me with one of my early documents, aghast that I had not used tabs, but spaces. “Tabs, Becca. Tabs!” he said vigorously as he quickly input all the needed tabs, then helped me print it out.

Those big hands were expert also at grilling steaks. I remember several occasions when I went to the large sink in the repair shop and had to change plans, because there were steaks floating in icy water in the sink.

These pictures were taken during a string department picnic on the patio of the Pinner home at 11 Tassel Trail. Mrs. Joan Mulfinger, my first teacher, is with Jay.

During that same picnic, Jay had an unrepairable piece of junk of a cello. We had already had some pretty wild adventures in “finishing off” such instruments! Like seeing how many times we could toss a junk cello high into the air, and then retrieving it for another toss it if it still was “repairable!” We finished this piece of junk off with some fireworks!

In 1998 I married Martin, and Jay and Dianne played for our wedding. They played several of their wonderful hymn arrangements. The Pinners’ hymn arrangements rank high at the top—among the best hymn arrangements anywhere (you can purchase some of them at sacredsheetmusic.com). I would love to hear Jay sing once more, while Dianne plays, Panis Angelicus—"Oh, Lord most Holy” as he did for our wedding. Or Satisfied—"Hallelujah, I have found Him Whom my soul so long has craved.” Or my very very favorite, the one that filled Jay’s eyes with tears each time he sang it on orchestra tours, Crimson Drops Outflowing by Dr. Bob Jones Jr.—“See the crimson drops outflowing from the Christ upon the tree, While men gazed, unmoved, unknowing that His blood set sinners free. Free from sin, our condemnation laid on Him was paid in blood. Precious blood for our salvation, reconciling us to God.”

Well, the Pinners and I continued teaching together, working together, eating together at BJU for many years after my formative time that this tribute highlights. This amazing man, this entertaining, gifted, giving man and his equally amazing wife were some of the Lord’s greatest gifts to me—my musical mentors and friends.

Not everything Jay taught me or did for me was music-related. He and his family took a couple of friends, including me as a college student, hiking in the Pisgah forest one time, and once to a quarry where he taught me how to hold and shoot a rifle and a revolver. He pumped up the tires of my bike too. He listened to me much and pointed me to the Lord’s help during low times in my college days.

I grew up at Bob Jones University, and we had a house on the back campus. When I was in college the Pinners moved in directly behind us. Jay and his boys sometimes took care of my cat and dog when we were away. How many rides did I get in their huge yellow and brown station wagon!

During the time shortly before my senior recital I was walking across our back yards to play for Jay almost every day that I hadn’t already done so at school. He would sometimes draw pictures of what I should remember (like a person skating to help with all those quick harmonics in the last movement of the Mendelssohn). He was a great sketcher!

One December night, about 10:45pm, two weeks before my senior recital, my violin met with a tragedy. I was practicing every spare minute, so I had not yet packed it up, and it was knocked off the piano bench by a falling piece of equipment. I was now looking at a ¼-inch hole in the top of the violin, with jagged pieces of wood sticking up in several directions!

When I graduated from BJU the Lord provided me with a Graduate Assistantship, part of which was conducting the Bob Jones Junior High Orchestra five times a week and continuing my work in the String Repair Shop—which I continued doing for next 26 years! I felt so very inadequate, because I knew I was not the whiz that my Junior High orchestra director (Jay) had been. But Jay gave me hours of advice, active support and encouragement. He came to many of our concerts and wrote congratulatory notes to the orchestra afterwards.

He substitute-conducted for me for two weeks when I had surgery. In fact, the day after I came home (in other words, the first time I would be by myself), he loaned me his cellphone so I could call my parents if I needed help, without getting out of bed.

Here is a link to his memorial service, which includes a slide show of Jay and his family, accompanied by Pinner and Gustafson hymn arrangments. The orchestra playing his arrangement of Wayfaring Stranger is representative of his students and friends.