You may have noticed that my "Culture Break" posts include a wide range of music. I don't know how to explain that, except that my attitude is "It's all music". I grew up in a musical household, largely thanks to my mother, who played guitar and piano (self-taught, largely) and always insisted that we watch TV programs like "You Hit Parade". I also grew up in that period when music became context rather than an event -- I still remember my first transistor radio. (This was in the days before MP3 players and iPods.) I had my first exposure to classical music when my dad brought home a surplus recording of the Brahms D Minor piano concerto from the school where he was based. (I don't remember whether he was a teacher at the time or had moved into administration.) I went nuts, aged eight or nine, and would pretend to be the conductor.
And, as I grew older, I ran into all kinds of music. My first boyfriend was a Wagner nut, and I caught the fever -- along with Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, and then Mahler, the Russians. On my own I moved into the twentieth century and the really hard-core avant-garde: Subotnick, Varese, and the like, and then, when I was at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Philip Glass (still in his early strict serial minimalist phase; it was much easier to watch his ensemble in concert than to listen to the recordings), Steve Reich, Terry Riley.
Green Man Review, with its emphasis on traditional folk music, reinforced and broadened my taste in that area. I had been enthusiastic about artists such as Peter, Paul and Mary, Joan Baez and Buffy St. Marie, and there discovered Fairport Convention and others in the Anglo-Celtic-Nordic tradition.
About the only kind of music that I can't relate to is "cool" jazz -- there's something to inwardly focused about it -- not the usual reaching out that a performer does with an audience -- that I have trouble connecting. This is not to dismiss jazz entirely -- I'm quite fond of several Scandinavian jazz artists.
I should also note that, because I became GMR's "weird music guy", due in large part to my willingness to say "Sure, I can do that", that I developed an acquaintance and fondness for such things as gamelan, classical raga, and various things that fit into the "world music" category (such as Aziz Herawi, Master of the Afghani Lute; yes, that's one of the albums in my collection).
This all comes about while thinking of my playlists. My computer claims that I have over 700 albums on it (although sometimes it says it's closer to 900); I've also assembled a few playlists that I play in the morning while I'm surfing for the news. The one that's up now starts of with Sharon Isbin's rendering of "Andecy", which I pulled off of this album. It goes on to include such artists as Nickelback (which I've termed "the band everybody loves to hate", Dead Can Dance, New Order (because of "True Faith - 94", a song I kept hearing while shopping and finally found out what it was), Fleetwood Mac, Depeche Mode, Linkin Park, Red, R.E.M., Carl Orff, and Oysterband (British folk rock).
My second playlist is three complete albums, starting with the soundtrack to Hell or High Water by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, with appearances by several country and western artists. (That's where I discovered Colter Wall.) That's follow by Last Leaf and album of traditional Nordic tunes by the Danish String Quartet, and Skikt, an album by Johan Hedin and Harald Petterson that is pretty much unclassifiable. (And I have no idea where that one came from.)
All of which leads, inevitably, to my first playlist, which I put together several years ago. This one, for some reason, is heavily weighted toward boy bands (with others, of course), starting with 98 Degrees, a band based in Florida. There are, of course, several songs from Backstreet Boys, and a few from not-boy bands: Real Life and Icehouse (both Australian bands), Foreigner, and again, Red, New Order, Dead Can Dance and Nickelback.
And so that's the story of music and me -- accumulated experience, some by chance, some by design (at one point I had a habit of walking into music stores and browsing, and would wind up thinking "That looks interesting" and walk out with a new CD).
I shudder to think what life would be like without music.
And, as I grew older, I ran into all kinds of music. My first boyfriend was a Wagner nut, and I caught the fever -- along with Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, and then Mahler, the Russians. On my own I moved into the twentieth century and the really hard-core avant-garde: Subotnick, Varese, and the like, and then, when I was at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Philip Glass (still in his early strict serial minimalist phase; it was much easier to watch his ensemble in concert than to listen to the recordings), Steve Reich, Terry Riley.
Green Man Review, with its emphasis on traditional folk music, reinforced and broadened my taste in that area. I had been enthusiastic about artists such as Peter, Paul and Mary, Joan Baez and Buffy St. Marie, and there discovered Fairport Convention and others in the Anglo-Celtic-Nordic tradition.
About the only kind of music that I can't relate to is "cool" jazz -- there's something to inwardly focused about it -- not the usual reaching out that a performer does with an audience -- that I have trouble connecting. This is not to dismiss jazz entirely -- I'm quite fond of several Scandinavian jazz artists.
I should also note that, because I became GMR's "weird music guy", due in large part to my willingness to say "Sure, I can do that", that I developed an acquaintance and fondness for such things as gamelan, classical raga, and various things that fit into the "world music" category (such as Aziz Herawi, Master of the Afghani Lute; yes, that's one of the albums in my collection).
This all comes about while thinking of my playlists. My computer claims that I have over 700 albums on it (although sometimes it says it's closer to 900); I've also assembled a few playlists that I play in the morning while I'm surfing for the news. The one that's up now starts of with Sharon Isbin's rendering of "Andecy", which I pulled off of this album. It goes on to include such artists as Nickelback (which I've termed "the band everybody loves to hate", Dead Can Dance, New Order (because of "True Faith - 94", a song I kept hearing while shopping and finally found out what it was), Fleetwood Mac, Depeche Mode, Linkin Park, Red, R.E.M., Carl Orff, and Oysterband (British folk rock).
My second playlist is three complete albums, starting with the soundtrack to Hell or High Water by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, with appearances by several country and western artists. (That's where I discovered Colter Wall.) That's follow by Last Leaf and album of traditional Nordic tunes by the Danish String Quartet, and Skikt, an album by Johan Hedin and Harald Petterson that is pretty much unclassifiable. (And I have no idea where that one came from.)
All of which leads, inevitably, to my first playlist, which I put together several years ago. This one, for some reason, is heavily weighted toward boy bands (with others, of course), starting with 98 Degrees, a band based in Florida. There are, of course, several songs from Backstreet Boys, and a few from not-boy bands: Real Life and Icehouse (both Australian bands), Foreigner, and again, Red, New Order, Dead Can Dance and Nickelback.
And so that's the story of music and me -- accumulated experience, some by chance, some by design (at one point I had a habit of walking into music stores and browsing, and would wind up thinking "That looks interesting" and walk out with a new CD).
I shudder to think what life would be like without music.
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