Music has probably been around as long as man has been on the earth. Maybe the first forms of music were just voices, until someone picked up a stick and began to pound on a rock to make a beat. It surrounds us, it comforts us. Music can make us laugh and sometimes bring us to tears. It has its own form of magic.
I grew up in a musical household. Not that we were musicians, although Dad could play the harmonica, but there was always music of some sort in the house. Mother had a cabinet full of albums that ranged from classical symphonies to bar room honkytonk. My older sisters were growing up with the birth of rock & roll and they had their own cache of vinyl discs as well.
Naturally we all have different tastes in music. There are some forms of music we love and some we don't like at all. I remember when the Beatles first performed on the Ed Sullivan Show. Wow, I'm really old. I sat in front of a black and white TV and watched as the girls in the audience screamed and cried at the sight of the Fab Four. My dad thought they were ridiculous and said he wouldn't go across the street to see them if they were playing in the neighbors' yard. It wasn't too long after that though, I heard him whistling "Michelle" as he was dressing for work, so I knew he did like them a little bit. As I get older, I understand how he felt because I wouldn't go across the street to see Jay Z, but, to each his own when it comes to music.
Sometimes making music can be just as much fun as listening to it. I've always tried to buy my grandchildren all the noise making musical instruments that I could find in hopes that they would one day want to learn to play an instrument. Unfortunately, when my kids would see these musical wonders, they usually left them at my house.
The kitchen is an endless source of musical weaponry when it comes to small children. I taught my youngest daughter how to play the spoons at an early age. I would sing, "Oh I had a little chicken and she wouldn't lay an egg....." and she would clack those spoons together like a pro. Even today, she can still play a mean set of spoons.
Just last night her two children were giving me the "when's mom and dad going to be here" line and I thought it the perfect time to teach them to play the spoons. Try as they might, they just didn't seem to have their mothers' spoon playing genes so they began to rummage through the cabinets. Out came the pots and pans, flat lids to my stock pots and cottage cheese containers. Let me tell you, flat stock pot lids make for mighty fine cymbals.
We sat on the floor with our spoons from the spoon lesson and began to drum on all the instruments at our disposal. The end of each jam session would be finished with a loud crescendo of the pot lids. I realized the sound the spoon was making on the sauce pan had a familiar ring to it and I pulled out my phone to search for a You Tube video of the song that was in my head. What a cool, techy grandma I'm becoming. I found it and we wrapped up our musical performance with a rousing rendition of "Honkytonk Woman" by the Rolling Stones. Their parents had arrived by this time so we had an audience, and no, I didn't teach them all the words, I just mumbled through certain parts.
"Music has charms to soothe a savage breast" was written by William Congreve more than 300 years ago and it still rings true today. Music is as much a part of life as is the air we breathe. If you go outside and listen very carefully, you will hear that even the earth plays its own song.
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