I don’t remember particularly caring about music as a child. My earliest recollections are not of ballet lessons, elementary-school band rehearsals, or karaoke with a pink cassette player. What I do remember are Saturday afternoon chores with dad: untangling bicycles from the garage, painting the shed, sweeping out the week’s sawdust from the basement, stacking and restacking chords of firewood, passing by the hardware store for one more box of nails, and the invariable drive to the transfer station where I helped him sort and unload the trash. Dad always had the radio playing as we drove. Oldies, classic rock, New Orleans jazz, folk, the occasional symphony – he said he could even appreciate the art of rap because, “After all, it’s poetry extempore, something I’m not sure even Emily Dickinson could do.”
Every Christmas Eve my father visits the little music store on Railroad Street behind the Triplex Cinema. Half an hour later he comes out with a little brown bag tucked under one arm. The next morning each of his seven children come pouring down the hallway and into the living room to find a very square package etched in dad’s very square handwriting. One year he gave me Satie Piano Works. Another year is was Ferde Grofé Grand Canyon Suite. When I was thirteen he gave me Andreas Scholl’s Wayfaring Stranger. I thought I had never heard anything more ridiculous in my life: a man singing soprano! It sounded completely immasculine and I loathed it, but I didn’t tell dad, instead, slipping it into the bottom of my stack. A year later, while looking for revenge against my older brother, I pulled the obnoxious album and played it on the loudest volume I dared. Then I played it again. And again. And again. I couldn’t stop playing it. I had fallen in love with the contratenor voice of Andreas Scholl. I still play that cd now on early summer mornings at the pool, watching swimmers glide back and forth.
Today, the most important part of music to me is the rhythm. Is it something that magnetically moves me? Does it overwhelm me, consume me? Do my shoulders begin that sway that I know will soon rock the whole of my body whether I want it to or not? The supreme high a drug addict craves is the same sensation music gushes through me. It’s like new blood in the veins. Not necessarily into heavy base, I still enjoy the sense of reverberation in my chest - the ramped up sound system in the car behind me at a stop light pulses a pavement-quaking beat, the rapid staccato rumble and rush of a train whizzing through the tube shakes the whole world. It's music to me.
In my ipod you will mostly find jazz; classical and contemporary piano; Latin rhythms like samba, salsa, and Argentine tango; a capella; folk (think Eva Cassidy); and African and Arabic pop. At the moment I’m most interested in performing and studying the elements the of a capella. Occasionally I turn on some pop, but most of it bores me too quickly. Do pop artists ever write anything aside from songs of love and depression (usually love-sick induced depression)? I did find Owl City’s recent hit "Fireflies" agreeable, however. It happens to not be about either love or depression but addresses the artist's sense of wonder during another night of insomnia - ten million glowing fireflies bobbing and dancing in the night sky.
Another favorite of mine, “Add to the Beauty,” by Sarah Groves, reflects on the doors of possibility opened by redemption.
Sara’s lyrics are sharp. She addresses issues beyond typical subject matter and her use of slant rhyme challenges my preconceived notion of where the words are about take me. Songs like "I Saw what I Saw," "Painting Pictures of Egypt," and "In the Girl there's a Room" speak to a person's interaction with themselves as well as others on levels besides that of fulfilling the "love leak." Aside from my Sara Grove’s collection, my music doesn’t generally have words, or isn't in English so I can’t understand the message even if I want to. My Album Arabic Groove, for example, beats a movement-inducing pulse, but for all I know the artists are singing about tomatoes and carrots. I honestly never thought to look up the translation, though I don't know that I would want to. It detracts from the mystery. Without a translation, the words become another harmony – another layer - not a separate entity of their own.
Dad and I still listen to the radio when we drive. Today is his birthday and when I go home to see him on Sunday I will be sure to first make a stop at the little music store on Railroad Street behind the Cinema. His gifts (and Andreas’s album) were a lesson to me - almost everything is worth a few listens. If I’m not immediately captivated by its rhythm then at very least I should give it some time before forming an opinion of like or dislike.
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