Sound and Vision
Do you remember the moments where you first heard a song and it immediately brought you to a higher level like falling in love for the first time? I've already written about discovering rock and roll with my dad listening to old Tom Petty and Traveling Wilburys songs on the car radio or catching the tail end of MTV actually dominating their programming with music videos but there's so much more to tell.
So let's see where this goes.
The moment I was introduced to The Beatles was one Sunday in kindergarten. The local oldies station would play a programming block they referred to as Beatles Brunch every Sunday morning that played everything from early demos (that would later be immortalized by The Beatles Anthology) to the final mixes on Let It Be. One Sunday, my father switched on the radio in his old 1980 Corolla in time to catch the runaway opening to She Loves You, the 1963 single that would go on to become the most popular song the Fab Four ever released in the UK. I think what struck me the most about the song was the sheer energy of it all; the melody hits the ground running and never lets you go. Also, there's this idea in the song that singers aren't overjoyed that this mystery woman is in love with them, they're so happy that someone they know is in love with one of their friends. Just thinking about spreading that pop positivity puts a smile on my face.
My father had the Red and Blue compilations of the band's greatest hits as well as A Hard Day's Night and Help! on vinyl and I must have worn the needle out playing those records nonstop. Completing the bubble of Beatles fandom my parents helped facilitate for me was getting A Hard Day's Night and Help! on VHS, a chance to see the band ostensibly in action in their own films. Unlike, say, the Elvis movies that were being produced during the same period, The Beatles flicks were no cheap cash-ins but rather bristling satire loaded with classic songs and the band's own natural charisma. I wore those tapes OUT but what I didn't know is that my dad was not a huge music guy. In his entire lifetime, he only had a couple stacks of records. As I started to get Beatles' albums on CD, I was discovering stuff I didn't know about: Rubber Soul, Revolver, Magical Mystery Tour. The singles were on the greatest hits compilations, sure, but there were so many deep cuts on each album I never knew existed. Even now, all these years later, when I listen to a track like Baby, You're a Rich Man or Oh! Darling, it still has that new car smell to it.
I wish I could say I had this full-on School of Rock-style rock and roll education for the remainder of elementary school swaggering in with AC/DC t-shirts and ripped jeans but that just didn't happen; I wore a lot of plain white tees growing up and my jeans were in perfectly functional condition. Outside of The Beatles, I didn't get a whole lot to work with at home and would resort to listening to oldies stations on the radio in my room to expand my rock horizons. My dad didn't have the most extensive record collection; outside of the aforementioned Beatles, all he really had was a stack of John Denver, CCR, and Waylon Jennings records. He also was a big fan of The Doors and had more records by them than The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin combined.
Look, I totally get that music appreciation is a completely subjective exercise but that is an absolute fucking travesty.
I was always looking to find more but what I didn't expect was a detour into...ballet?
Going to school in the DC-area meant field trips to all the major DC sights and that included the Kennedy Center out in Foggy Bottom. The National Symphony Orchestra was playing a selection of classic Americana with standards from the likes of John Philip Sousa, George Gershwin, and Scott Joplin. My third grade class got to sit right there in front row center and take it all in, hit by an orchestral wall of sound that helped develop the country's musical identity. This was all fantastic stuff but, for me, the showstopper was Aaron Copland's Rodeo.
In a lot of ways, Rodeo is the first truly American ballet, even moreso than Copland's previous work Billy the Kid; like the old musical Oklahoma! but actually good. The aural climax to the score is Hoe-Down which features a joyous cacophony of strings and horns. For me, this textually felt like a mix of country and the big city; the strings capturing the country and the horns evoking an Art Deco vision of New York. It was this movement that I realized the sheer sonic potential of music, more than hearing the runaway refrain to She Loves You, the crisp main riff to Bowie's Rebel Rebel, the dreamy piano keys in Muse's Starlight.
Rodeo is my gateway not just into ballet (The Nutcracker and Swan Lake being other favorites; I'm big on Tchaikovsky, I guess...Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring I have to be in the right mood for) but music in general. It broke my appreciation for music free from the confines of rock and roll and to, well, everything. Rock, classical, country, rap, heavy metal; after being treated by the NSO, everything was fair game.
Music is a sensory enhancement. Whatever you're feeling, good/bad, in love/out of it, it amplifies that sensation. It activates all the major centers of the brain and builds neural pathways making the brain more symmetrical while releasing natural chemicals affecting the pleasure centers of the mind. More than just a sonic catharsis, music is that preferred methodology I have to put all that bullshit aside and move closer to that inner truth that we're all looking for.
But what of finding way my own way into contemporary tunes? Of learning how to play music myself? Of going to rock shows?
Those stories absolutely exist and they're stories for another day. Keep reading...
So let's see where this goes.
The moment I was introduced to The Beatles was one Sunday in kindergarten. The local oldies station would play a programming block they referred to as Beatles Brunch every Sunday morning that played everything from early demos (that would later be immortalized by The Beatles Anthology) to the final mixes on Let It Be. One Sunday, my father switched on the radio in his old 1980 Corolla in time to catch the runaway opening to She Loves You, the 1963 single that would go on to become the most popular song the Fab Four ever released in the UK. I think what struck me the most about the song was the sheer energy of it all; the melody hits the ground running and never lets you go. Also, there's this idea in the song that singers aren't overjoyed that this mystery woman is in love with them, they're so happy that someone they know is in love with one of their friends. Just thinking about spreading that pop positivity puts a smile on my face.
My father had the Red and Blue compilations of the band's greatest hits as well as A Hard Day's Night and Help! on vinyl and I must have worn the needle out playing those records nonstop. Completing the bubble of Beatles fandom my parents helped facilitate for me was getting A Hard Day's Night and Help! on VHS, a chance to see the band ostensibly in action in their own films. Unlike, say, the Elvis movies that were being produced during the same period, The Beatles flicks were no cheap cash-ins but rather bristling satire loaded with classic songs and the band's own natural charisma. I wore those tapes OUT but what I didn't know is that my dad was not a huge music guy. In his entire lifetime, he only had a couple stacks of records. As I started to get Beatles' albums on CD, I was discovering stuff I didn't know about: Rubber Soul, Revolver, Magical Mystery Tour. The singles were on the greatest hits compilations, sure, but there were so many deep cuts on each album I never knew existed. Even now, all these years later, when I listen to a track like Baby, You're a Rich Man or Oh! Darling, it still has that new car smell to it.
I wish I could say I had this full-on School of Rock-style rock and roll education for the remainder of elementary school swaggering in with AC/DC t-shirts and ripped jeans but that just didn't happen; I wore a lot of plain white tees growing up and my jeans were in perfectly functional condition. Outside of The Beatles, I didn't get a whole lot to work with at home and would resort to listening to oldies stations on the radio in my room to expand my rock horizons. My dad didn't have the most extensive record collection; outside of the aforementioned Beatles, all he really had was a stack of John Denver, CCR, and Waylon Jennings records. He also was a big fan of The Doors and had more records by them than The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin combined.
Look, I totally get that music appreciation is a completely subjective exercise but that is an absolute fucking travesty.
I was always looking to find more but what I didn't expect was a detour into...ballet?
Going to school in the DC-area meant field trips to all the major DC sights and that included the Kennedy Center out in Foggy Bottom. The National Symphony Orchestra was playing a selection of classic Americana with standards from the likes of John Philip Sousa, George Gershwin, and Scott Joplin. My third grade class got to sit right there in front row center and take it all in, hit by an orchestral wall of sound that helped develop the country's musical identity. This was all fantastic stuff but, for me, the showstopper was Aaron Copland's Rodeo.
In a lot of ways, Rodeo is the first truly American ballet, even moreso than Copland's previous work Billy the Kid; like the old musical Oklahoma! but actually good. The aural climax to the score is Hoe-Down which features a joyous cacophony of strings and horns. For me, this textually felt like a mix of country and the big city; the strings capturing the country and the horns evoking an Art Deco vision of New York. It was this movement that I realized the sheer sonic potential of music, more than hearing the runaway refrain to She Loves You, the crisp main riff to Bowie's Rebel Rebel, the dreamy piano keys in Muse's Starlight.
Rodeo is my gateway not just into ballet (The Nutcracker and Swan Lake being other favorites; I'm big on Tchaikovsky, I guess...Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring I have to be in the right mood for) but music in general. It broke my appreciation for music free from the confines of rock and roll and to, well, everything. Rock, classical, country, rap, heavy metal; after being treated by the NSO, everything was fair game.
Music is a sensory enhancement. Whatever you're feeling, good/bad, in love/out of it, it amplifies that sensation. It activates all the major centers of the brain and builds neural pathways making the brain more symmetrical while releasing natural chemicals affecting the pleasure centers of the mind. More than just a sonic catharsis, music is that preferred methodology I have to put all that bullshit aside and move closer to that inner truth that we're all looking for.
But what of finding way my own way into contemporary tunes? Of learning how to play music myself? Of going to rock shows?
Those stories absolutely exist and they're stories for another day. Keep reading...
