Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Growing up in a musical family.

I was asked by one of my close friends what it was like growing up with a musical family. So I'll blog about it.

Obviously, my earliest memories involve music and my parents practicing. Words like "practice", "ensemble", "gig", etc were very familiar to me as a toddler. My dad either went to school (to teach) or played gigs in the evening. My mom had flute students and worked with my dad at the church. Words like "liturgy" and "prelude/postlude" were also pretty common for me.

I was so young that I didn't realize how very GOOD my dad is at playing. It was just commonplace. It was what he did. Nothing special. It was when I was old enough to start learning piano myself that I thought "Whoa.. there's a lot to this. It's not as easy as it looks."

And yes, my parent have embarrassing home videos of me attempting to play the piano at two years old. They would ask me where the high keys were (I'd bang the keys on the right side) and where the low keys were (and I'd "play" the left side). I was also surprised to learn as a little kid that not everybody had a grand piano in their house. Weird.

I was raised with classical music and jazz. And I loved going to see the Symphony play. I also liked music conventions. I Didn't like going to school choir concerts, however. High schools are terrible, loud, chaotic places. That and his students fawned over me and thought I was adorable. I found them to be condescending, but I wasn't a normal 3 year old.

Disney movies and other musical kid movies were REALLY important to my kid life. I know a lot of Disney songs by heart and owned all the Sing-Alongs on VHS. I also had (and I think still have somewhere) a little toy piano. It was wooden and built like a mini piano. Pretty frikken cute.

I started taking piano when I was about nine. I could be wrong on that, but I'm pretty sure I was nine. I learned a bit of recorder before that but I was just like "fuck this, this is a dumb instrument." Mary Had a Little Lamb was the only song I knew how to play on that thing anyway.

Taking piano was a really good experience and feel like I stopped taking it at the right time. It's very time consuming, and I would get frustrated. My parent's wanted me to practice a LOT (which is understandable) but it was around this time that I figured out I did not want to be a professional musician. My parents were like "good for you! You can make money!". hahaha

There were times when I was intimidated by how good my parents were. I mean, how could I measure up? But over time, I outgrew that feeling. I don't know if this would make sense, but the more I understood music the more I understood the learning process. My parent's are good at what they do from YEARS of practice. If I want to be that good at anything, it'll take awhile. And that's ok!

I think I like and understand music in a way that I can appreciate it and produce it myself, but I'm not too involved where it becomes part of my workday. Sometimes a little distance is a good thing.

Also growing up I wasn't allowed to listen to "over-socialized" music (pop, rock, rap). I did anyway, of course but I'm glad I started with classical. To this day I happily listen to bands like AC/DC and composers like Mozart. My mom, dad, and other music teachers I've had taught me the concept of "musicality". It's hard to define, but it's something I look for in anything I listen to. If I don't like a certain band or singer, it's because I can't hear any musicality and that's a deal breaker.

I'm glad I was raised with musician parents. They taught me to have a firm base in reality, but also to take creative liberties. Plus I'm stuck with them. They're my only parents and they say they've grown attached to me over time. They also taught me to have a sense of humor. In my dad's case, a corny one.

I'll be Bach!



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