Music is a way to entertain, tell a story, memorialize cultural traditions and even heal or reduce stress. Traditional musical works have served as way to inspire, to uplift spirits, as a tribute / praise to our Creator. Sometimes traditional music also serves to record societal mores’ and captures the essence of a culture, using a very few notes to record history. Cultures and societies have their own music, the kind that immediately identifies them when you hear it.
I labored over the keyboard in my early years, finally meeting my personal Waterloo attempting to master the first and second movements of Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor, Op. 13, commonly known as Sonata Pathétique. One of the most beautiful pieces ever composed; but personally, I think Ludwig was just showin’ off when he wrote this, kind of like Johann did when he wrote (and somehow managed to play) Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. Monsters aren’t under the bed, they appear on sheet music with fantastical notations and unconquerable measures, a place where correct fingering can never be discovered, a landscape unplayable by normal humans.
Nowadays, after a career spent on airplanes, in indistinguishable office environments working with even more undistinguished corporate leadership (yes, you know who you are), continually blinded by backlit computer screens, music has become a fond escape; a way to recall pleasant memories and a reflection of what was happening when it was written and performed. Now there is no playing (or attempting to) just listening and enjoying.
Love me some spirituals and gospel. Think that we conservatives could use an unofficial anthem? Let me suggest you give a quick listen to the Blind Boys of Alabama sing “Ain’t Nobody’s Fault but Mine.” Listen to that message, then tell me how anyone can still sit back and watch as stuff goes on around us? Every socialist democrat, ‘identity politics victim’ should be made to hear this, at least once in their self-imposed misery of a life. Yes, we are responsible for ourselves….the music says so and it never lies.
How many hymns are on your favorites list? I still love the ‘new’ worship songs, popularized by John Wimber and the Vineyard Christian Fellowship a couple of decades back. Okay, I know…..Louis Armstrong’s rendition of ‘What a Wonderful World’ isn’t a hymn, but I posit that it could be. I’d vote for it. I still remember how wonderful it sounded the first time I heard his perfectly beautiful-terrible, raspy voice. “Oh Yea…..”
Love me some country, some bluegrass and folk, too. If Foggy Mountain Breakdown doesn’t get your heart pumping, nothing will. Need a chuckle, recall the Soggy Bottom Boys singing Man of Constant Sorrow. Some of us can celebrate the escape(s) of our past, listening to Roy Clark sing “Thank God and Greyhound She’s Gone!” Ladies, you can play this one too – the celebration of escaping bad relationship is apropos for either gender (and yes, there really are only two).
I’ll only admit this once, disco really doesn’t suck. 124 – 126 lively beats of coolness per minute… What better way to be ‘Stayin Alive,’ dodging the vicissitudes of life wearing a two-piece, all-white suit than listening to the Brothers Gibb? Are you Working at the Car Wash? Play the music, remember your hard-working days and smile as you recall better, simpler times.
Classical music can tame the most savage of beasts and set the stage for the happily-ever-after. How many weddings are performed to Pachelbel’s Canon and Gigue? The perfect music for the joining of lives, the alternating voices perfectly synchronized into forever harmony. Sometimes the choirmasters get it perfectly right!
Ever listen to the Beamers (no not the cars, the dudes from Hawaii) as they play their slack guitars and bless your ears with a little ‘Sassy Hula?’ Don Ho’s bubbles weren’t wrong, and neither was one of the most memorable renditions of Over the Rainbow by Israel Kamakawiwoʻole. Remember when you first heard that version? I do. How impactful is that music?
Once in a while a pop song can make you smile, too – who doesn’t like hearing Bocelli singing Christmas carols alongside the Muppets or a very talented fourth grade class?
Ah yes, our very own American Rock and Roll! Thank goodness the rest of the world got on-board or we might have been only left with Elvis, Aerosmith, the Monkeys and the cast of Glee. Okay, if it was only Elvis and Aerosmith, I could easily cope….but I am grateful for the Stones, the Beatles and sometimes, ABBA. Hair bands welcome here, too! Okay, okay – jazz afficionados will claim that rock was preceded by gospel and jazz. I won’t argue, but I’d add a teaspoon of country and a little dollop of folk as well.
Sorry if you are a fan, but I don’t include heavy metal on the music spectrum…. Metal music is oxymoronic; the juxtaposition of metal and music is that definition’s poster case. Metal was more like psychotic rambling at maximum volume than anything likened to music…a shrill, harpy-like, discordant noise that offends. Like the noise of politics in the waning days of a losing campaign.
Every music sets and recalls memories, generates emotions and marks events / times in our lives. Every music genre can speak to the soul, and we all have one (a soul, not a genre). (Sorry progressive-socialist-dems, but conservatives are created beings too, so you’ll simply have to accept the fact that we have souls, just like you). You may not be a big fan of any kind of music, but somewhere deep in your cortex is a song that has some level of meaning for you. It might be a lullaby you heard as a child, it might be a popular song, a theme from a movie or a family member’s favorite that they played when you were around. The music of your first dance or perhaps the National Anthem at your first ball game?
I wonder what music will be written about 2021? How many songs will recall the dark days of Barrack Biden’s third term? Will they be upbeat tunes or sad laments? Inspired or insipid? Uplifting or upsetting? Glorious or garrulous? What music will be the background that will remind us of the train wreck of this authoritarian administration? What songs will we hear that will recall the time of the tragedy of the Afghanistan evacuation? Which lyric will evoke the memory of the vacuous stare of the leader of the free world? This may just be the season for reemergence of something no one wants to ever hear again; the awful, mournful dirge – truly, Democrat music
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