Family Music
Amanda’s tale of the ‘stranger’ that often violated family values got me thinking. And on Brad’s Take, I wrote about how, in tough times, music can be affordable, and available, and rewarding – and, when played or sung, the song selection contributes to bonding and building families and communities.
But I got to thinking, that by letting commercial interests select the stories that are available (TV, movies) and the music that is available (radio, TV, music marketers and producers and distributors), we give away immense amounts of time that our kids and our families spend immersed in that very emotional medium – music.
Milton Bradley is advertising CandyLand and Sorry and Monopoly as ways to spend ‘family night’. I guess I have to write Aulos and Yamaha and Hohner to remind people that kids and adults can learn to play the guitar, the recorder, the penny whistle, the piano and organ, the harmonica, the dulcimer, etc. I personally thing drums, trombones and other brass, cymbals, etc. require larger music groups to make their loudness .. useful. But, I guess you could enjoy a quiet family singalong, just send Junior with his trumpet to participate from the barn or basement.
Teaching your kids to play an instrument occupies their time usefully – it takes stamina, patience, motor skills and develops dexterity and concentration and discipline. And, if you teach the kids, they spend that time learning, practicing, performing – with you.
Time spent with your kids, at work, learning, and in recreation, conveys a lot of character-building information. Both ways. You cannot teach, well, without learning things about yourself. Spending time with your child is the single clearest way to express your attachment, love, and respect for them.
One other aspect of family music, music played on simple instruments in the home, is selection of the music. While Junior might bang out with the butt-thumping boom-cars, at home you can balance that by requiring some of the older songs, songs that shaped our cultural heritages. “I’ve Got Rings on My Fingers” is a silly Irish ballad. Explaining the story, though, covers a bit about the British Empire, back in the day, and the emergence of the Irish as they dispersed across the world to affect other peoples. Also, “The Harp That Once Through Tara’s Halls” gets into rebellion. Frederic Smetana’s “Three Revolutionary Marches” made an impact on my during high school. I bought the conductor’s score, copied out the melody line of one of the pieces, and play it today. Whistling that melody in Lowes last year, a girl ask her father if he could whistle like that (I assumed she meant the tune, cause as a whistler I an not good).
_Three Revolutionary Marches_ was, when written, banned by Czechoslovakia as a capital crime – for rousing a rebellious spirit in the population. _The Harp That Once.._ was a rabble-rouser by Thomas in the 1800s, rousing the Irish against the British. Umm, Tara was the hall of the High Arl (king) of Ireland, the largest wooden hall in Europe from 800 BC to 400 AD, as well as the name the Irish founders gave the mansion and estate of Tara, in “Gone With The Wind”.
Commercial music today is shaping future generations; there is no help for that. Teaching out kids the music that shaped the world for our parents and grand parents can help balance that legacy.
Forty years ago companies were following psychologist recommendations that people that play an instrument are better at math type skills. We lost that particular bent in company managers, but the theory hasn’t been disproved that I know of. Keeping traditional music and the ability to play can open doors in unexpected places. Learning music can provide inspiration and comfort down through the years. And it might just take a $4 recorder and $10 book to get started.
Recent Comments