Confessions of a Musically Challenged Mom

Chuckle #405 | May 12th, 2010
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That's it.  I can no longer physically or mentally, keep up. My kids seem to start a new activity or hobby every 5 minutes. In just the past six months I’ve had to learn the ins and outs of chorale, crew, volleyball, mock trial, and fencing. My brain is full. I’m an “old dog”.

Unfortunately there are still “new tricks” to learn. Showing a surprising lack of compassion for my intellectual limitations, my son has taken up composing. So I must now learn stuff about classical music. Compared to volleyball, the world of classical music is EPIC. I love my son, but my musical horizons have long been limited to rocking the Black Eyed Peas on my way to Marshalls to shop. Now I need to know the answer to questions like “what is a fugue?” and “which instruments make up a wind quintet?”

This is NOT how I had planned to use the few middle aged brain cells I have left.

I’ve tried to like classical music. I’ve tried to train my ear. I have three classical music stations pre-programmed into my car’s XM. But yesterday (ex-post piano concerto), I arrived at Marshalls only to find myself too sleepy to shop. Not the desired effect of a get psyched “shop till I drop” anthem.

Symphonies (or rather Sonatas for Orchestras) average about 35 minutes, though Beethoven’s Symphony #3 in E Flat Major (AKA Eroica) is closer to an hour. In the age of shortened attention spans, I think popular music became popular simply because the songs last only 2 minutes. They fit better into modern carpool life. And you can totally appreciate Lady Gaga without having a degree in music theory.

It does not help me at all that most classical music pieces are known only by a number. A “real” name would give a listener like me context (especially when there are no lyrics to tell you what the heck is going on.)

I encourage my son to call his compositions something other than “Piano Concerto #4.” I suggest clever alliteratives like “Cafeteria Cacophony” and “Teenager Tantrum.” Suggestions he has ignored in favor of cleverer names like “Thinis Burning”, (which provides a metaphorical context only for those of us intimately familiar with ancient Egyptian history.) Which I am not.  No wonder classical music audiences are dwindling – so the experts say.

There is an ocean between my son’s musical tastes and my own. I’m doing my best to part the waters, but Moses I am not. (Though the purchase of “Classical Music for Dummies” has been a godsend.) I pity the poor boy. When he asks me to listen to his compositions, I say insightful, constructive things like “that middle part was weird” and “sounds like fairies being chased by saber wielding Mongols.”

My son suffers my ignorance like a true gentleman. He continues to seek, and actually listens to, my layman’s opinion. Perhaps my son will be “the one” to bring a true love of classical music to middle aged, musically challenged moms like myself. Who knows, people like me (whose interest in classical is driven by love, not intellectual curiosity) just might be the future of the art. Carnegie Hall subscription holders can cringe all they want.

That said, if I am to keep up with my son’s musical interests, con molto brio, I’m going to need a few more brain cells. Maybe I can harvest them from my kids. They seem to have plenty to spare.
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