A music democracy
I was speaking to a colleague about Tin having become a music dictator – he has his music and as far as he is concerned, we should listen to ours somewhere else. Trombone Shorty, Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Ella Fitzgerald, some Brian Eno, Gal Holiday, and Professor Longhair for starters.
My part of the conversation was fear we had created a music monster and what my friend said is he envisioned Tin growing up to be the Music Critic for the New York Times.
In the Times there recently was an article about earphones and how they harm kids’ hearing. But layered in the article was how earphones cause tuning out when listening to music is a social phenomenon. Or at least it should be.
Living here in New Orleans it is commonplace to listen to music together – with family, friends, lovers, neighbors, hell the entire city turns out for seven days of musical orgy and that’s just Jazz Fest, we also have French Quarter Fest, Mo Fest, International Fest, Bayou Boogaloo Fest etc..
The article encourages adults towards sharing music – you listen to your child’s and in turn the child listens to yours.
I remember so clearly my father’s love of Connie Francis, my mother’s of Hank Williams and Patsy Cline, my brother’s fondness for the Beatles and of not telling me what the words to Get Back meant, keeping them locked up in mystery till I was quite older, my other brother’s not only love but imitation of Elvis Presley, one of my older brother’s love and imitation of Johnny Mathis, my father’s piano playing (almost a virtuoso on the piano having started from the age of six), dancing on my father’s toes, my sister and I choreographing Eli’s Coming, Mony Mony, and Crimson and Clover on the back terrace when we lived in Puerto Rico.
My music memories are shared ones, not tuning out, not by myself, but music flooding the house, my ears, my soul. Tin needs to get with the program – it’s not his way or the Freeway of Love, it’s our music – all of it.