MMmmmmm: Music

What is today?  Another Monday?  The 15th?  guh.  Well, if it's Monday, April 15th, we must be looking for a post about the letter M.

So here it is.  M.  It's for Music.

On any given day, you and I might be particularly hard pressed to find someone who DOES NOT love music.  Love of music seems to be part of the human condition checklist, below "heartbeat" and above "facebook".

For most of us first-world types, music comes into our lives at a commercial level pretty early on.  If we weren't already jammed up with the baby einstein business when we were human-souffles, we were very likely inundated with other whole-grain children's programming (bursting with musical goodness) well before we hit kindergarten   My early childhood music exposure consisted of whatever sesame street could throw at me, mister rogers, the electric company, and (alas) NPR.  Well, it was Colorado Public Radio mostly, I think.  But the ol' memory is fuzzy on that particular point.

Anyway, when the tv wasn't on and we were just playing around, the radio usually was.  I was brought up on a steady auditory diet of Bach, Beethoven and the Beatles.  Not to perform any of it, mind you.  My folks were about as far from the Tiger-Mom parents as they could get.  They were strict, sure, but it was the eighties and we were little white kids in a teeny little mountain town and they just hoped that we'd figure out this big thing called 'life' in our own time.  Which we did.  Largely.  And all of that music we listened to, actively or not, has contributed tremendously.

With seeds like that planted in my brain, I have developed quite a fondness for a broad definition of what we call music.  Blue Man Group plays right alongside Marvin Gaye and Paul Simon in my little MP3 player. Anytime I bump into a Joe Raposo song I just melt into a happy little puddle of nostalgia.  Tom Waits and good ol' mister Moondog share my airwaves just as kindly as Pink, Madonna, Disturbed, and Bad Religion. I simply cannot get enough of Tatu or Patricia Kaas or Johnny Clegg or the Everly Brothers.  I simply cannot get enough of Geminiani.  I simply cannot get enough of Scott Joplin.

My point is this:  It's kindof all the same thing.

Music, from Merrie Melodies to Thrash Metal, it all does one thing.  It communicates.  It gives each ear a message and sometimes it is the same message and sometimes it's different.

But music, like a language of our very own which transcends pronunciation and grammar, it's just the sound of humanity as we carry our burden of consciousness through the vasty wastelands of time.  And by the gods, even when it is mean or ugly, it is so beautiful.  Music, as a wise woman once confided in me, says "come and play".  It says "be a part of this".  It says "me too".

To wit:        those unaccustomed to classical...  give it a minute.  don't give up on this one too fast.