If you’re looking for a book of sheet music for Star Wars or Lord of the Rings in Wasilla, Alaska, you aren’t going to find one. No way. But if your father is a drummer residing in Los Angeles who loves any excuse to hit a music store, you may be in luck — quarantine or not.
I texted him and asked if he could keep his eyes open, maybe send me one if he got lucky. He did, and he did. Which is fortunate since I have a daughter who wants nothing more for her birthday than to sit behind the 88’s and work on mastering “March of the Resistance.”
Personally I prefer “Yoda’s Theme” or perhaps “The Battle of Endor Part I,” but I’m old school, meaning I grew to love those masterpieces while listening to them through oversized headphones attached to a turntable, frequently operating secretly, well past bedtime in the dead of night.
Some kids snuck books and flashlights under their covers after bedtime, I snuck the London Symphony Orchestra. Thus, the love affair began.
I blame my dad. Psychologists say that experiences in early adolescence influence future behavior. We can therefore safely lay the blame for my love of classical music on the sweet chiming tone of my father’s watch alarm, circa 1980. Some (probably underpaid) wristwatch maker managed to sandwich Beethoven’s “Fur Elise” within small layers of glass and metal. And I was fortunate to hear it every morning around 6:00am from across the hall. Thanks, Dad. And also, I love you.
But Star Wars was the exception, because classical was rarely on the speakers in our house. Our childhood soundtrack featured an unusual convocation of musicians with a diversity of sounds — from the experimental (acid funk, punk, disco) to the recently designated “dad music” (classic rock, soul, blues) and everything in between. My dad had hundreds of albums, half as many cassette tapes, and even a handful of reel-to-reels. And they were always spinning, even more so after they were converted to CDs and added to a five-disc hopper on shuffle. Did I mention he’s a musician?
One thing we rarely ever heard was country, but my juvenile prejudice against that genre was overcome in time, thanks to my college girlfriend wife, aided by a week in Austin, Texas hearing “Don’t Take the Girl” on the radio every time we got in the van. **sniff, wipes tear**
It was much the same with rap, minus the wife. We didn’t listen to rap growing up, unless you consider Blondie and Grand Master Flash as rap. Yeah, I get it but they’re not the style I’m talking about. Most of that was just on the radio, but one sunny recess in 1988 a boom box was blaring the Colors soundtrack across the tetherball court, I rocked that tetherball thug style.
“Word.”
Rap didn’t stick though, and even the Pink Floyd I adored (I had every album, even the weird stuff) eventually found its way to a cast-off bin in the shed, where once beloved cassettes tapes go to die. But classical — Ah, classical, my old friend — was always there, and continues to stand as victor among the ruins of once proud Top 40 starlets who’ve since faded into oblivion.
Classical music holds a distinction over other genres; it is, by definition, a product of a bygone era and yet it’s still as modern as the latest summer blockbuster, appealing across demographics. The music was, and still is, designed to elicit emotion, whether composed for seventeenth century men in silk stockings and performed in royal amphitheaters, or for twenty-first century teenagers in darkened multiplexes. And it does, because it’s marvelous.
There is a certain comfort in knowing that no matter what is happening out on the street, somewhere the music plays on, and there will always be people who love it. There will also be those who yearn to add to the long catalog composed over the centuries, to be credited along side titans like Bach and Wagner, living legends like Glass, or populists like Silvestri.
These promising young artists practice their craft on top-of-the-line instruments in places where opportunities abound, and on slightly out-of-tune pianos in places where they don’t. They hone their skills with passed-down primers whose pages are falling out.
Or they do it with shiny new paperbacks full of John Williams’ latest and greatest, supplied by a musician granddaddy in L.A. who knows where to find ’em — quarantine or not.