“I’d like to know about how you instill your love of music into the kids.”
That was a question recently posed on my query looking for more topics to post about.
Short answer?
I don’t.
Slightly longer answer?
I just play music I like.
Alright, so the long answer is the rest of the post.
For me, it is important to know where we have been in order to understand where we are now and where we are headed. This is true in politics, life in general, and in this instance, the arts.
Film history has always fascinated me, and I grew up watching contemporary films alongside older ones. This was, of course, back in the day when broadcast television networks would regularly show films, theatrical releases, as part of their weekly lineup, years before home video became popular.
For instance, I remember Saturday mornings would be cartoons, then at noon the local UHF station would do a double feature starting at noon, well, it wasn’t really intended to be a double feature, but it turned out to be – first a Tarzan film then a Godzilla film. Anyway, mom and I would watch Tarzan together, it was a weekly occurrence, and when they ran out of Tarzan films they switched to something else but then would start over again with Tarzan after a while.
Then there were all the older movies we would watch as they were broadcast. Then cable came out, and with it movie channels. Then home video. And I was able to explore the actors I liked in their earlier roles. By the time I was in my 20s I already had a fair amount of knowledge of film history, who the “classic” major figures were in front of the camera as well as a number of those behind.
Growing up listening to my mother’s record collection there was a lot there to learn from and absorb. Again, growing up in the 70s rock and roll was still relatively new, 20 years, and a lot of stuff had not been forgotten yet. The “oldies” station was really Muzak, and she was a kid when rock and roll started. Listening to the Beach Boys at the time wasn’t like hearing your grandparents records, they were contemporary. Exploring their back catalog, while extensive, wasn’t just “checking out a bunch of old stuff” but seeing what this band was doing not so long ago.
Elvis dies and I remember it being a big deal. HUGE. The king was dead. That brought to the forefront the origins of rock and roll, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Little Richard, etc., people who were contemporaries to Elvis, some of whom had died, some were still around, but that was when I remember there being more of an examination of “older” rock and roll, and about the time I began to really appreciate Buddy Holly. Through Buddy Holly and the Beatles I was introduced to what is essentially the history of rock and roll, and as I entered my teen years, beginning to form my own musical taste, I learned even more. By the time I was in my 20s I had the time and disposable income to explore the history of popular music in the 20th century – the big box of the Complete Glenn Miller is a prized possession.
As I would learn about a new band I would recognize elements of bands that had come before. Why did “new wave” sound the way it did? Why did Queen put “no synthesizers” on their earlier albums? What drove Marvin Gaye to write the album What’s Going On? How are The Byrds and The Hollies connected? What happened to Supertramp?
As I got older and more and more into music, I would understand why things sounded the way they did more and more, and that would inform my enjoyment (or not). This being a particular area of interest, I would read books, books of lists, articles, and more importantly, listen to album after album, looking for where it would fit in within the puzzle that is musical history.
Having that knowledge in my back pocket now helps me talk about music today with my kids as we listen to whatever we are going to listen to, be it The Beatles or Taylor Swift.