TOPIC: Musical Heritage

I've been reading through some of the blurbs in the class directory and it got me to thinking about where my appreciation of music came from (I think of this as my musical heritage). My immediate family was not very musical, in that neither of my parents ever tried to play a musical instrument and refuse to even sing most of the time because they both claim to be "tone-deaf." But we still listened to music. My father loves jazz and swing music who never could stand that dreaded rock and rols and my mom is the old-time country music fan (think Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard) who happened to love Elvis' voice. When I was a young child, I listened to my dad's albums so I knew more about Dave Brubeck and Herb Alpert than the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. But when I was a teenager and discovered what everyone else was listing to, I went crazy. I listened to everything from Beatles to Kiss to Talking Heads and I terrorized my parents ears. I think this is where my eclectic taste came from. So, what's your musical heritage? Who in your past influenced you the most?

That's funny. I grew up in a musical family. Every day coming into the house from school was the familar sounds of the vaccum, water boiling(for dinner), and piano/ singing. That's what my Mom did, keep the house and play the piano. As night fell, my brother could be heard practicing a classical piece on his guitar or, my dad picking his guitar or mandolin to wind down his day. On weekends we all had jam'n cookouts. All 6 of us played something(I played elect. bass)and we kids invited our friends over for steaks, music, and beer[when we were old enough, almost]. My mom invited her lead guitarist over on occasions. He also played banjo. He'd start play'n a song called "the cabbage head man" and eventually it'd have all kinds of added lyrics to it and go on for an hour. You can imagine what a bunch of guitars, a mandolin, bass player, banjo and fiddle could do to that song! Man, I could go on. Anyway, it drove my parents nuts when I'd play my Pink Floyd/ Yes stuff. That's what I liked to listen to. My Dad said Yes sounds like chinese music. Eventually, I got into jazz like, Stanley Clarke and such, I like it all. Now, Im into the guitar and hooked on 6-string bluegrass!

Musical heritage...Mine was not as special as the one's I've read here....But my mother listened to the radio 24/7.... WELI in New Haven, CT...Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald were her favorites...I know the lyrics to so many 40's and 50's songs....Even now, I hate silence.. have to be listening to SOMETHING!!!

We all listened to WIBG in Philly.
Motown was the best thing ever.
We all used to sing while doing the dishes at night.
Of course during the day the girls in the neighborhood took learning all the dance steps very seriously.

Then FM radio happened and opened up a whole new world of music.

If it had a tune you could sing to I was happy.

My Musical Heritage....WOW! That would have to be my mom and dad....Not a Saturday morning went by that I wasn't woken up by my dad's "HI-FI" blaring tunes.....He loved every type of music...especially blues and jazz and latin. Any chance he had we would go to New Orleans to listen to the musicians in the Quarters....Great memories. And my mom sang to us all the time. Every trip we took be it to church or the beach we would sing along with the radio and if we didn't know the words to the songs she would make them up and we would follow...unfortunately I still do that

I grew up in a household where the only legitimate music was classical. My father played at the violin so Vivaldi, Mozart and Paganini were favorites. My mom specialized in WW II novelty songs like, “Three Little Fishies” and “Mairzey Dotes”

was enrolled in essentially a music conservatory at age 8 or so for piano, in Rochester New York. The building was an old 3 story building with the core a concert stage and formal seating even including a balcony section. Around the core concert hall were classrooms either empty or with a high upright piano. I took lessons twice a week with theory (a formal separate class) once a week for an hour or so.

We had exams and formal report cards. I remember walking into the exam room with 2 people I didn’t know seated at a table with an old square piano in the center. I would hand them a 3x5 card with the songs/scales/ exercises listed. Without any discussion you went to the piano played and then thanked them and left and waited for the report card. We had to do recitals on the lighted stage periodically which was pretty traumatic. I quit after 2 or 3 years as the intensity was just too much. Kind of too bad in retrospect.
After moving to Michigan, I again took piano lesson for about 3 or 4 years in high school, again all classical, lots of Mozart Beethoven and Bach. Got interested in Baroque and renaissance and built a Clavichord and later a harpsichord. In graduate school I took a term of harpsichord.

When I moved to Orlando from Michigan in 1979, I decided a more portable instrument would be nice. I always liked banjo with the typical experiences of hearing it on the Beverly Hillbillies, Glen Campbell show (John Hartford) etc. I had a respect for some of the picking I heard, you couldn’t deny they were pretty good musicians.
Got my first banjo in the early 80’s and took lessons from Jim Fee who is a pretty well known banjo player. He had a gig at Disney dressing up like a bear. Murphy Henry credited him with lots of her learning.

When I got married my banjo became mostly decorative. About 6 years ago or so my wife asked me if I wanted to play the banjo (I was considering just selling it) and the rest is history.