Music and Family: The Purpose of Music

     “Did you play any instruments when you were younger?” I start off. It feels strange to be interviewing my dad, as if he hasn’t animatedly told me a thousand times before about his days in high school band. We sit across from one another at our kitchen table, the steam from his tea rising between us. I press record.

   “Yeah, I was a percussionist in school so I played the snare drums, timpani, xylophone, triangle, cymbals, timbales, trap set, everything in percussion we played,” he begins. “They’re all similar, the only really complicated thing was the xylophone, but my main instrument was the snare drum. One of the pieces that we played was called “Snares Traps and other Hunting Devices” and it was just a fun piece,” he says. “It was a snare drum, field drum, we had the timpani, but we used the instruments in different ways. We played on the sides, we played on the rims. I was playing timpani and a field drum, but I was actually using xylophone mallets on the shell of the timpani to make the sounds. It just used every part of the drum which opened up the idea of how percussion actually works.

   "I always liked rhythm. You’d hear rhythm in everything, like think of the train going down the tracks, the clackity-clack clackity-clack clackity-clack, it’s all rhythm, right? And it’s the thing that carried everything else. I also kind of wanted to have fun and every time I was watching percussionists they were always having fun.”

   I can tell he is getting excited again as he goes back into his memories, reawakening the past as he tells his story. I marvel at how vivid his memory is of something that happened roughly forty-five years ago. His joy of music and of that moment kept the memory alive in his mind.

   “So we had a marching band, right, and we developed our own cadences. We had one that was really fun to play but it was really syncopated. Nobody could walk on beat, most of them weren’t that coordinated and so we had to change that. But we were all crazy, we would take and throw sticks to each other across the way. So we would be playing and the one on the end would throw his sticks over the other and the other would hand them down. It was lots of fun."

   “Were your parents musical?” I ask, this question more for my own curiosity. My paternal grandparents have always been distant from our family and I have often wondered which parts of themselves they’ve left behind in my Dad.

   “So, the house we had was always musical,” he replies. “My Dad liked Count Basie and Frank Sinatra and Big Band stuff and he would listen to it at night. My mom on the other hand was more Country Western: Johnny Cash, Burl Ives, Sunny James. 

   "My parents bought lots of records and got a record set of all this classical music, like complilations, which made me interested in that. I was always very interested in classical music growing up. As I got older in high school and band, there were some pieces that the director arranged—some classical pieces—for band.

   "It wasn’t until I got into college and wanting to study, that I wanted music. I couldn’t study without some kind of sound. For some reason it helped me focus on what I was doing. When I would read my books, I would have music playing. The interesting part is now I can hear a song and I will go right to that book I was reading then at the time. It’s wired in there. If you play Chuck Mangione, I will be thinking of the Hobbit.

   "There was also movie music, and as a film major, I became very interested in that and how it actually drove action. You know, you could film a scene and it was boring, but once you put the music to it, it made sense.

   "Then in college we also talked about the psychology of music and how music actually wired connections between the brain’s hemispheres. It is a mathematical thing, but also a creative thing. Music is the thing that ties images and thoughts and actions together. It calm calm you or make you agitated. When I was working in construction I wanted something with a driving beat. When I was writing I wanted to listen to something more Classical or Jazz. I listened to a lot of Jazz.

   "Across the hall from me in college this one guy had probably a thousand albums all of different stuff. But he liked Blues and Southern Rock and Jazz. I was constantly borrowing albums from him or sitting over in his dorm room as he was playing music. The music made community and other kids would come in as well.

   "I also had a whole collection of Beethoven’s Piano Concertos and I would listen to all of them all the time. And then I listened to all his Symphonies and how things were put together amazed me. Tchaikovsky was another one. Certain pieces, you know the Serenade of Strings and Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony when I heard it live, that changed me because of how powerful music was. When I was sitting there live, right front, that power actually made the hairs on my arm tingle and rise. You could feel the vibrations, how strong that was."

   “Did you have any ‘rebellious’ music or music that your parents disapproved of?” I ask. He considers for a moment, taking this time to sip his tea. Setting it down, his thumb rubs the rim as he formulates his answer.  

   “Well, I liked Leonard Skinner and I liked Thirty-Eight Special and Pink Floyd. But I liked it for the guitar work in there. Some of them could just make it speak. But my dad wasn’t much for Rock music.”

     “Do you have an all-time favorite album or piece?”

   “Yeah, but in different genres. Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings has to be one of them. There is this phrase he uses again and again and it just builds throughout the entire piece. Another is Stevie Ray Vaughan’s “Double Trouble Album”— I have listened to that probably a hundred times. There’s parts in there that I just don’t understand how he makes the guitar do what it does. 

 

   "And there’s the Phil Collin’s tune that is your mom and my song.”

   “Why is it your song?” He smiles softly at the memory.

   “Well, it used to come onto the radio at the same time every night. You could set your watch to it. It was always playing at the time when we could be together and we would always put the radio on. So, it became our song. Had it at our wedding too.”

   “Did your musical past influence how you wanted to raise my siblings and me?”

   “So, from all of that we knew that music had to be an important part of your education. One, for the appreciation of just the art form and two, because it would help to round you out as a person. The other part is because of what music does mentally, it helps you to think creatively, it just pushes your brain to think differently. A lot of people nowadays are trained to think linearly and that’s not how you come up with anything new or enjoy anything. You have to start synthesizing thoughts with emotions to make those connections."

   “So what is the purpose of music?” I ask. He doesn’t answer right away and the silence feels weighted.

   “So, I was in a class, an ecology class, and the teacher said that ‘the trees sing’. I thought he was a lunatic. But he showed us the data. Different trees have different resonating pitches when the wind blows through them and other trees respond to that. I thought that it was astounding that they actually communicate through sound. And well, music had to be created because nature and animals respond to music. It's everything. I think that’s the way that God speaks to us and gives us his creation, and our way to understand creation. Music is how God communicates on a level that we can’t understand. And that’s why it’s important. There is something in it that helps you to know more about life.”