My Newbie is Showing...Part 3

BC: Let the Music Play

Prompt: What kind of music did your parents listen to? Did it influence you to listen to the music you listen to now?

So this brings back memories. My mom had a collection of opera and classical and one, just oooonnnneee, (imagine me waving a single index finger at you) what might be considered modern song, and it wasn't even in English! She loved Eres Tu. It is the only song she would play. My dad liked the song because he knew mom was frisky when that song was playing.

My dad was quite fair minded. He had five kids and asked each of us what music we liked. We did not know what he was up to, so it was either be truthful or be dumb. I said, Partridge Family: Vicki said Lynn Anderson, Dad admitted he liked Glen Yarboro, Mom said Johnny Cash. The other three sibs said I don't know so we ended up with Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty (because an I don't know in my family means you forfeit your choice to the giver of gifts.) Surprise, he got an 8-track player, man those things made the music sound crisp. The only thing I did not like is that it clicked to the next track mid-tune.

How did this influence my music choice? In high school, we all had to be in band and play marches and arranged music. I was ready to bust out by the time I hit college. So it was all New Wave. I loved it. The best thing about New Wave is the hook lines were so easy to remember and the rhythms had us spinning and popping all over.

By the time I started having kids, I was sticking with the 80s music. I hated that rap crap. Still do. The girls were in orchestra and band and they truly appreciate the music my mom liked. My mom was a talented musician who hid her talent under a bushel basket. Of all the sibs, I am the only one who had any real talent with the instrument. The boy hated band and likes the 80s and obscure stuff. As for me, i am now back to "Country". Probably because it has the most 80s feel that you can find.

I am glad my mom had some influence on me and my kids. She is gone, but her love of music lives on. It took me all this time to realize that I made that cornet sing like a trumpet. It took talent to pull sound out of an instrument that it was not designed to do. My eldest daughter can fiddle around and pull decent sounds and rhythms out of any nonstring instrument she picks up. She is most talented in trumpet and french horn. The second daughter can play stringed instruments and make them sing. She is quite talented. She is not as performance minded as the eldest. The boy has no instrument talent at all. He takes after his dad. Which surprises me because his granddad made a living as a piano player in a band for a bit of time in the Depression.

So that's my story. Thank you, mom, you kept the music alive. Thank you, dad, for putting up with all the mayhem with five kids in band concerts or marching bands ... (and mom's private lessons for each of us.)

One more quick story. Cindy and Brenda both chose clarinet instead of brass. Mom could fake it with a brass instrument, but all she could do with a woodwind is yell up the stairs that they hit a clunker. Years later, they admitted to mom that they taped their practice and would play cards until the tape was done. They thought for sure she would catch on to the same mistake in the same place, but she never did. Vicki like the baritone, because mom could show her how to play it. Vicki would sit quietly and when mom was winded and had her practice in, she would hand the horn back to Vicki and ask if she got it. Vicki would say "I think so" and go back to messing it up. Mom tried to teach me the cornet, and she did a good job. With me, she would not play it, but she would be the metronome in my ear. Proof that she did the job is that I was always second chair in a 20 piece section. I could have had first chair if I had a trumpet but oh, well, I did not know that until years later, and I am still claiming bragging rights to making an instrument sing when it was not designed to do the things I was demanding of it.