During the morning commute (7:05 am) I turned on the radio like I almost always do. I clicked through the four presets, the first station had news, the second was Elvis, the third was a current pop tune sung by a male vocalist in that high, strained voice and the fourth, Jethro Tull on his breathy flute. I turned it off and thought about music instead.
How much music do I hear in a day? Amazing. I can't go 24 hours without hearing it somewhere. I remember reading the Laura Ingalls series and its descriptions of how much they enjoyed it when Pa pulled out his fiddle. I remember scenes in Jane Austin movies where the young ladies are encouraged to 'play for us Sophie, please do...' or in Little Women, they join around the piano at Christmas and sing, off key or not, for the joy of the music. But we can push preset buttons, drop in an audio disk, plug in an ipod or watch You Tube. Is there a point where there's too much of a good thing, does the music lose it's magic because it's so available?
In HS I used to go backpacking in the White Mountains with a group from the youth center. After two or three days in the back country we started to miss our music. As we hiked along the trail one of us would burst into spontaneous song and the rest of us would do our best to join in. Pop tunes mostly, which are not that easy to sing by the average joe or joan, but also rounds, ballads and childhood lyrics .
"The bear went over the mountain, the bear went over the mountain, the bear went over the mountain, to see what he could see."
Music is so powerful, moving, comforting and alive. Can you have too much of it? When I sat down to write this, I remembered a Beach Boys tune from HS, looked it up on You Tube and there it was. Now that's cool. :D
3 comments:
When my husband and I were dating and talking about what we wanted in our life, we decided that our home would have good food, lots of books and lots of good music. Now our idea of good music was 60's rock and roll and still is. Our kids know all the words to our teenage songs and have their own favorites. Music goes with the food and the books, must have to live and to be happy in life.
How lucky we are that all those wonderful songs of our younger years are still right there to reach out and listen and enjoy.
In a world where music was becoming more and more available and kids were now expected to take music lessons, my Dad --who was tone deaf-- said he played the radio quite well.
That was back in LP record days. If he only knew the technology available now. All kinds of music 24/7. But ya know what? After so much of it, I like to turn it all off and enjoy the silence. :-)
We also enjoy music in our daily life! I do love the fact that we can choose from the past,also the choices of themes! One day I want 40's,or 60's or Love songs, or good country,or swing,thank goodness for that technology and XMSirus
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