Field Study - Music and Family :)

For our “Family and Music” field study, I interviewed my parents. They didn’t really understand the point of the interview, but they were nice enough to sit and answer my questions.

I found out that when my mom was young she listened to whatever was popular (i.e. the Top 40), but she mostly listened to what she considers Rock music (which is now classic rock) I happen to know for a fact that she is a big Pat Benatar fan.

When she was young, my mom listened to music on many different mediums, mostly because technology advanced so much. She could remember listening on a stereo, a record player (one of which we still have in our house, which just makes me happy), eight tracks and even cassette tapes as they became available.

My mother didn’t dance to any of the music she listened to, “unless I was at a dance”, she said. She would listen to music in her bedroom, and her parents didn’t really say anything about her taste in music; they would just yell at her to turn it down every now and then.

When asked what happened once she became the parent, she said “I taught my girls how to listen to my music.” She laughed a little, and then said, “Actually, I taught you to listen to all sorts of music.” Which is true; we listened to a lot of different music when I was a child. My taste in the random has just broadened my musical tastes.

My mom played a couple instruments when she was young – she started on the clarinet and then moved to keyboard percussion, which she marched with in her high school’s marching band. She also likes to sing, thought she only does it for herself.

When I asked her about her musical environment, she laughed and said “I grew up and was in marching band.” She didn’t come from a particularly musical home, so when she joined marching band, which was the most musical exposure she had ever had… That is, until her two daughters became music majors. :)

She said that she just listened to music for the enjoyment – there wasn’t really an emotional connection to any of it. The last thing I asked was if she had ever been exposed to music outside of her own culture. She laughed, gave me a funny look and said, “Only as an adult when we lived in Japan. It was… … (Silence) Different.”

Then she turned the mic., so to speak, over to my dad. When my dad was younger, what he listened to depended on which phase of life he was in. When I asked him about the technology he used to listen to music, he said, “The only technology we had – a radio!”

Dad said he didn’t dance to music, which is slightly understandable… bless his heart, he’s not musical in anyway, and he has no sense for rhythm. That said, he listened to music mostly in his car, sometimes at home. His mom, my Nanny, didn’t like his choice of music. She would yell at him, “Turn that long haired shit off!” (I think that is the greatest parent-to-child command ever!)

After he became a dad, his taste in music didn’t change; he’s listened to rock music as long as I can remember, and apparently long before that.

My dad was a jock when he was young, and he didn’t play an instrument or join the marching band like everyone else in our house. “I try not to sing, not even for myself,” he said with a laugh. He’s not the best at carrying a tune, bless his heart. My mom, however, likes hearing him sing.

When I asked him about his musical environment, he laughed and said, “Mostly drunk.”

I asked him why he listened to music and if there was an emotional connection to it for him, but he just scrunched his nose and shook his head a little. When we got to the last question about being exposed to music from other cultures, my dad told me about hearing native music in the different countries he went to while he was in the military. He has been all over the world – Egypt, Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, China, Saudi Arabia, among many other countries (he said ‘tons of places’). There’s even places he’s not supposed to talk about going to because according to the government, he never went, so I’m sure my dad has had a great deal of experience with music from different cultures.

It’s really interesting to look at my parents’ musical histories. It’s something I’ve never really thought about, and it’s actually more interesting than I thought. I just hope that I can expose them to more music from different cultures. :) As some of my class mates know, I’m slightly obsessed with the music of the Arab world as well as recitations from the Qur’an and vocal music from India. Oh yes, exposing my parents to more things will be very fun indeed.