| Monday, April 11, 2005 |
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Lyrics, treble clefs and minor thirds... Music often spends its time with me in a sort of chameleon-like way. It reinforces my bad mood, pumps up my good days, and, from time to time, reassures me. My relationship with my good friend music started rather tumultuously, back when I was four. Off I went for my first Sunday lesson with Mrs. Graham, my very stern and smelly piano teacher before the enlightened days of Mrs. Finch. I absolutely hated playing when I was really young. Thinking back on it now, I think it was because my young, budding-perfectionist psyche just couldn't handle one simple fact: my hands were nowhere near big enough to span a full octave, and I was therefore rendered useless in the routine warm-up exercises that we were all forced to do. The more I think about it, that may have been my first bout of self-esteem-damaging perceived inadequacy with my peers, which continues on-and-off to this day. Anyway, I finally evolved into a decent enough pianist by the time I was 8 or 9...despite still, and even now, having trouble spanning a full octave with my relatively small hands. At that point, however, my definition of "music" wasn't really my piano playing or my budding interest in choral music. It was, horrifyingly, my very first tape...Tiffany. Even then, music had a very transformative effect on me...I felt ever-so-grown-up with my very own tape and bright pink ghetto blaster. Man, was I ever cool... If you're ever in Winnipeg with me, remind me to show you the totally awesome grade six grad photo of me in my bright pink overalls! For many years around that time, music itself wasn't something that I listened to for enjoyment...it was something that I did because it was a grown-up thing to do. I remember, when I was 10 or 11, I asked my Dad to bring back Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magik for me on one of his many day-trips down to North Dakota. It was promptly removed from my possession after he decided to listen to it one day. How...un-grown-up. After that, it was still a long time before I associated music with enjoyment. Still, I didn't classify all of the singing I was doing (in various choirs, musicals, and plays) as "music"...music was still what I listened to on the pink ghetto blaster and my new prized Discman. It is now a good 20 years since my first brush with all of those lyrics, treble clefs and minor thirds... Music has taken on a very convenient role in my life...that of reinforcer and reassurer. There are those mornings that call for soulful ballads about love lost. There are the times right before heading out to the bar that require some good, old fashioned dance tunes. Then there are those times in which that little voice in my head is drowned out by the little bud in my ear...*those* are the times when I appreciate my melodic friend the most. I woke up this morning feeling horribly uneasy...like *something* was wrong, but I just couldn't figure out what. It was a calming, ballad-filled walk to work... . Liberated at 12:58 p.m. | |
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