Music and Me

    The cold wood floor greets my bare feet as I stumble out of bed, rubbing the last remnants of sleep from my eyes. My alarm clock rings out with the sounds of Prokofiev's "Dance of the Knights" from the ballet Romeo and Juliet. I rotely move through my morning routine before heading to school. The 45 minute drive is filled with music spanning a wide variety of genres from Pop to Celtic fiddle, Classical music to Disney, Rock to Jazz. At school I find myself in a practice room playing music for four hours a day. I go to classes that are filled with conversations and analyses about music and then drive home, again accompanied by the sounds of Spotify. 

    Suffice to say, my world is filled music. In truth I have never known a time in my life when music didn't permeate every facet of my existence. I was born to parents who longed to have learned an instrument when they were younger and so they made sure that all four of their children had the music lessons they were never afforded as children. I heard the sounds of my siblings practicing piano and violin before I came out of the womb and had a violin thrust upon me at the age of four. The echoes of my screeching violin could be heard all throughout our small suburb in Madison, Wisconsin while in another room my older sister played Cape Breton fiddle, and downstairs my brother played jazz on our upright piano. I was influenced by all of it and my musical taste became vast and ever-evolving. As such, I rarely have just one song on repeat and am obsessed with continually finding new sounds to add to my multitude of Spotify playlists. 

  1.  At the moment I have found myself listening a great deal to Woodkid, a French singer-songwriter and music video director. His music fascinates me because it focuses more on producing an environment than about the quality of the vocals or even on the meaning behind the lyrics, although they are often quite beautiful and poetic. There are elements of the mythological and seemingly Scandinavian culture sprinkled throughout his songs and his music videos aid in producing this atmosphere. I first heard his song Run Boy Run in the Netflix show "The Umbrella Academy" and was instantly hooked. 

    Run Boy Run is perhaps his best known song. It starts off with the ominous tolling of bells before the rhythm and singing begin. The lyrics don't give much in the way of description, but it is clear that the song is about a boy trying to escape his current world or society in search of a more accepting one. The rhythmic drive perpetuates the idea of pounding feet and gives a feeling of urgency to the song. This is in contrast to the chorus, which instead of focusing on the current task of running looks ahead to the future when the boy will finally be able to rest. The percussion stops and the strings take over for a moment while that hope for the future dangles shining before the boy. Then the percussion builds again as the present need to run returns.

    I personally also adore his song I Love You. The combination of strings, percussion, and organ creates a really moving and powerful effect that always transports me when I listen to it. The Russian that is spoken in the beginning translates, "Today I shall tell you a story of a man who drowned in a cold ocean, having lost one he loved. It is a story about a man who died twice."

    

 2.   In an amongst my thousands of saved songs on Spotify of varying genres can be found one genre that always makes me feel like I am coming home. Ever since I was a child I have loved Cape Breton fiddle music. I grew up hearing my sister play Natalie McMaster's CD in her room, as she attempted to emulate Natalie's violin techniques and frequently a taped recording of the Leahy's performance in Gantineau, Quebec would be playing on the TV in our living room. When I was six years old my family went up to Toronto, Ontario to attend a week at Leahy Camp. While I was much too young to participate in the fiddling (still struggling my way through Suzuki Book 1 at the time), the feeling of joy and passion for the music, as well as the sense of community that came with it always stayed with me. As a child I dreamed of being able to play as well as Donell Leahy and to find as much joy in music as he displayed. 

This first clip is from the Leahy's show in Gantineau, Quebec that I grew up watching. It features Donell's incredible playing which gets more intense as the set continues.  

 

    This second clip is of Natalie McMaster who has a more "true" Cape Breton sound which can be heard in her slightly more "gravelly" playing quality. This is a set made up of three traditional Irish Reels which are also frequently used in Cape Breton. 

 

3.      I enjoy many different styles of music and so I feel that there isn't any one genre that I absolutely detest. However, if I had to choose, I would say that I have a hard time enjoying modern Country music such as Luke Bryan, Blake Shelton, etc. I find that I get easily bored listening to their music and often just don't relate to their songs. The specific nasal quality of the music also tends to get on my nerves if I hear too much of it. I will concede that many of the modern country singers have great talent and powerful voices, but it's just not something I would choose to listen to on my own. Perhaps part of this comes from me growing up in Wisconsin where Country music wasn't often played and so I never understood or related to the culture that it comes from. 

    Below is Blake Shelton's song No Body. It highlights the general elements that often makes me feel unable to relate and enjoy this particular genre such as the nasally vocal quality, the musical topic, and the lack of differentiation from other Country songs.