"On the Gift of Music"

Dad loved music, although I cannot say that he loved all music.  He had his definite biases, and they included marching bands playing John Phillip Sousa, male quartets, and music from his Texas childhood, what he called "hoe-down" music.  Classical music, described as "high-brow," and any music with too intense a rhythm were not to his liking.  As one who plays the piano and loves music as well, I have always felt that gift was passed down to me, a genetic inheritance.

He was a self-taught musician, with the ability to create music from a variety of stringed instruments--banjo, mandolin, fiddle.  I grew up knowing that, while a fiddle and a violin looked alike, there is a vast difference between the two, and that difference was in the one who played the music.  Dad played the fiddle and left the violin to those he deemed sophisticates.  The banjo, however, was his first love.  Children and grandchildren alike connect that instrument with him.

My childhood memories are filled with Saturday night music fests, aptly described as "hoe-downs," when several of Dad's co-workers and neighbors gathered, bringing their families with them.  The house was filled with music for hours on end--music from the Southern part of our country, old gospel songs, guitars, the banjo, and singing galore.  I doubt that, like my Father, any of those men had a single day of lessons or professional training, but their repertoire seemed virtually endless.  Oh, the music which poured out of them!

Dad never learned to read music, and so he made it his goal that each of his children would learn to play a musical instrument and have that accomplishment.  My two brothers played baritone, accordion, and trombone; I played the piano.  The irony of this is that none of us were taught the instruments and the songs of my Father, and a large part of family heritage is lost, passing away when he did.   

While working in Sangita's weed-filled garden yesterday, I found myself thinking, not only about Dad and his love of music, but about music.  I've heard it said that love is the universal language; I am of the opinion that music is on a similar plane.  I daresay that each and every culture in our world has its own form, its own type of music.  One can hear a certain song and know what part of the world it has come from.  It is that singularly identifying. 

I feel that music is part of our unique creation as human beings.  One has only to watch a small child respond to a song.  Their body begins to sway instinctively to the melody, the rhythm.  Often it is an immediate response.  Anyone who has had a baby knows the natural reaction to hum a soft, gentle tune to try to calm one who is upset, restless, or not feeling well.

Try to imagine, if you can, what your own life would be like without music in it.  Songs serve as landmarks in our lives, connected to events.  Often a certain date, place, happening is correlated to music at that point in time.  The words, the melody, the rhythms--they permeate our beings without our even realizing it.  We turn to music or it comes from within us when we are happy, when we are sad, when we are excited or mad.  Even in the deepest, darkest times it is not unusual to seek solace from song. 

I have been thinking about Dad a lot this past week.  I am going to be playing a John Phillip Sousa march, Stars and Stripes Forever as part of the 4th of July weekend.  I am one of the parts, two of the hands in a 2-piano, 8-hands performance.  My Dad would have loved it, not only because I was playing, but oh, he did love those Sousa marches. 

I have always thought that I received the gift of music from my Dad.  However, in looking at the common, shared factor of music in all of mankind, I have concluded that that gift was given not only to me, but to each of us by my Heavenly Father.  Without it there would be an emptiness, a void, not just in my life but in all of creation as well.  Yet another gift that adds to my portfolio of wealth, reinforcing the claim that I am, indeed, one of the wealthiest women in the world. 

"....I am fearfully and wonderfully made."