What is music’s role in your life? Reflect for a moment; enjoy the rumination. For most, there are songs and artists who played in the background of some of the most important moments of our lives.
For some, it’s the song playing when you realized you were in love. Others, a children’s song that stuck, church music that supports your faith journey, or a hit from your favorite movie or Broadway play.
Musical taste forms around our personality: Alice loves dance music, I love music with meaning, and my friends’ tastes range from classical to heavy metal and everything in between. The only music you’ll hear me gripe about is Irish and Country music, due to their monotonous themes.
Like food, there is neither explanation nor reason to explain your taste, though it does make for some fun jousting among friends. Most of us simply know what we like.
Some quick research says that 30 million of the 330 million Americans play an instrument regularly. About 3 million of us freelance (“gig” occasionally or regularly). There are about 100,000 music teachers and about 10,000 full time professional musicians.
The research also says that 95% of us are plugged into music of some form daily. Between the 1% who play instruments and the 300 million, we use music in many ways.
My friend, Kathy Jo is a First-grade teacher. Throughout her career, she relates important lessons through music. She rewrites the lyrics to well-known rock songs with the message she needs to convey that day, then sings them to (and with) her students. It occurs to me that is nothing short of a brilliant mnemonic device. It seems much more likely that students’ memory will hold information presented in such an interesting and fun manner.
My friend, Howard, found out early that music caused him to want to dance. He gained his BFA in Dance Performance using his basketball skills to finance it, then dedicated his life to using hip-hop to teach kids from tough backgrounds to respect their history and their body. After teaching dance as a side hustle while working in charter schools, he now runs a hip-hop dance studio that produces national champion teams. Music is changing his and their lives.
The lesson that is most fun from music for me was taught by my Uncle Charley. He taught his eleven kids and our ten kids to sing silly songs loudly and proudly. My Mom would say that humor is medicine for the soul and there was nothing so soul-building as riding in a packed car or sitting around a campfire singing Kingston Trio’s “MTA” or the Donut Song all together. These songs and others such as “I Had But Fifty Cents” are headed to their fourth generation since I’ve made it my dedication to Uncle Charley to pass on the fun.
Peace.
Tim