My Family's Musical Culture

     For this assignment, I chose to interview my dad. He has always been very into music and tries to show us new music all the time. He has always been very...particular when it comes to music we want to play versus what he wants to play, but that is how I knew he would have a lot to say. Here is what he had to say. 

Me: So, to start off, what is your first memory of music?

Dad: My first memory of music would be a mobile that was in my crib when I was growing up. I don't remember it at that time, but I think it stayed into my room until I was four- three or four years old- and I would still wind it up and listen to it, and it played lullabies. 

Me: Anything [specific lullabies] you can remember or just general?

Dad: It played that, uh, Brahms something. I can't remember the name but it was one of Brahm's lullabies. 

Me: Ok, did you ever play an instrument? If more then one, which one was your favorite?

Dad: I played...I started playing the piano when I was seven or seven and a half, and I took lessons for about seven years, and when I was in- when I started seventh grade in junior high, I took up and started playing the trombone and played  for two years. But then, I decided that wasn't a very cool instrument to play, so I kinda dropped it. Probably my favorite was the piano. Later, in life I tried- I dabbled in the guitar, but it never really took off. The piano- I've long since forgotten how to play- but I did enjoy it. 

Me: Alright, what sort of music had an influence on you as a kid, as a teenager, and now?

Dad: When I was kid, it was classical, and my father listened to country music, not as a habit but it just happened to be noise while we were riding in the car. My mother listened to classical music all the time on public radio, and we were members of the Florence Symphony Orchestra Association, so we went to concerts all the time, and I liked going to the pops concerts because they always had cheese and crackers and everything sitting on the table while we sat there and listened. And to this day, I probably listen to more classical music than anything else. Now, that was as a child. As a teenager, I was into 80s music. I was born in the 1970s, so I grew up in the MTV era when they actually showed videos. I came home from school and hurried to turn on the TV with the purpose of seeing what these people looked like and what the latest song was, and those types of things. So that led into British pop, Michael Jackson, things like that, and into the late 80s- that's when hair bands started. Well Motley Crue was earlier, but Poison and all that, into young adulthood. That went from hair bands straight into a lot of Southern Rock but also grunge since I was a huge Nirvana fan, REM fan. Again, REM started in the late 80s, but they were still strong in the 90s, and a big U2 and INXS. And now, I still love to listen to 80s music, people are like that. I do believe that people are like that with their most influential music. For example, young adults in high school, students now- what they listen to now is what they'll care about when they're my age- I'm fifty-one. I also go to bed every night listening to classical music, and on satellite radio, it ranges from 80s, to Billy Joel, to classical, to jazz, and things like that. I long since gave up listening to hair bands and that type of stuff, I rarely listen to that, but most of my influence is from my childhood and being in school, being a student. 

Me: What would you say makes you feel connected to a piece of music?

Dad: I can get wrapped up in a beat, even though the lyrics are lousy. However, my favorite connection with music is if it brings some type of emotion, which a beat doesn't do that. So, it would be either in a symphony or a concerto that brings out emotion in intensity or the way it's played, or in lyrics of a song, no matter what the genre, that means something to me.

Me: Aright, and for the last question, what kind of technology did you use to listen to music at different points in your life?

Dad: This is interesting, so I went through a lot. We had an 8-track player- a tape player- but I was too young to buy such things. I had a small Fisher-Price record player that played 45s, 45 speed, rpm speed vinyls, which was the choice at the time, meaning mid to late 70s. I could acquire music through the time I had that, which was about age eleven. Then I finally got a radio boombox with a cassette player on it, so I went through a lot of cassettes- hated them. The only thing I liked about them is that you could record radio on your cassette tapes so you didn't have to go out and purchase the music, but then you got stuck with the cut-down, abbreviated version of the song, and you might get the DJ saying something at the beginning or the end. You've heard people make mixtapes just to make their own playlists, that's sorta how that started. I was probably early on in the buying CDs, I started buying them in '87, '88, plus or minus, and got very used to that and never looked back. In my early twenties, everything was CDs, until we're in the era we're in now, everything being digitized and downloadable. Now I just download it to my phone, though I did have an iPod, when it first came out, among other non-Apple products, now I just use my iPhone for everything.