Good The Music Of My Life Essay Example

I may well have one of the most diverse musical backgrounds of anyone – or perhaps that is merely my impression.
I was born in the Middle East, in a country just emerging as its own political entity, steeped in conflict, but also a place where for an influx of European immigrants. The country of my childhood was poor by current standards, yet I had everything I needed. As the pioneering population worked the land and the farms, they sang in the fields, the children sang in the schools, and everywhere were the sounds of the local folk songs of the day. The popular music of America also was prominent across the radio waves. I grew up hearing the music of Elvis Presley as often as I would hear Beethoven.
Yes, classical music was all around, brought in by the European immigrants to our country. The strains of Shubert and Mozart would regularly waft through open windows as we had no air conditioning in those days, and those dulcet tones intermingled with the disharmonious sounds of the Arab call to prayer.
We had few amenities: no refrigerator and no television, but we did have a radio that played almost all day long, and played popular songs, as well as local news and classical concerts.
My mother and father both loved classical music, even though they came from different parts of the world. I was exposed to Shubert early on, and when my mother enrolled me in music lessons, I remember walking into the piano teacher’s home, and hearing her play Rondo alla Turca by Mozart, and falling in love with that piece, and of course, I wanted to learn to play it. Over the years, I have played several classical pieces, including Mozart, Tchaikovsky and Beethoven, although my love of music did not stop with classical music.
Much later, I began to study singing. I had always had a good voice, and in fact, as a child in school, the other children always asked me to sing to them during recess in the school yard. I was not even 10 years old then, but my voice lessons started in my 40s!
When I moved to Italy and France, I learned the local music of those countries, and would always hum them around the house. When I came to the United States, I of course learned the popular music playing at that time, but I also learned the jazz of the 1940s and 1950s, Cole Porter and George Gershwin. I fell in love with the energetic music of Aaron Copeland, and would watch American musicals for hours on end on television, musicals like Carousel, Gipsy, The King and I, or Anything Goes. In fact, we came to the United States on the Queen Mary, and I would go to the tiny movie house on board just to watch West Side Story, which I saw 14 times on the ship! I could not get enough of that music.
I also fell in love with choirs. I belonged to my high school choir, and while we were practicing Christmas carols in 1963, we heard on the loudspeaker that President Kennedy had been shot. It was 2:00 p.m. on that fateful day. Of course, the song we were practicing shall forever remain in my memory: Hark How The Bells Listening to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir frequently moves me to tears. Some of the harmony resounding through those 200 voices gives me goosebumps.
Since the war in Iraq, the news channels are replete with stories about the Middle East, frequently with a backdrop of the call to prayer for the Moslems. I shiver with deep-felt memories of childhood whenever I hear that haunting chant. And if I am lucky enough to attend a belly-dancing display, I am even more riveted and mesmerized by the music, the dissonant rhythms and energetic cymbals.
Music seems to be part of my blood. When I came to the United States, my uncle discovered that I liked classical music, and ever since, he and I would play “name that tune” style games, where we each would take turns humming a few bars, and have the other name the composition as well as the composer. There must be thousands of such combinations in the musical archives, and remembering them requires some effort, but it is a lot of fun, and helps to cement the memories in one’s brain.
In addition to musicals, there are certain performers that I prefer to sing the works of Cole Porter or George Gershwin. The young Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald or Mel Torme – old-timers, to be sure, but such honeyed tones, such a fun syncopated talent with their voices, such smooth renditions of those popular songs of the 40s and 50s!
Yes, a very complex musical background and musical taste. I do not love all classical music, but I find its texture mesmerizing. I call it texture, because classical music must be listened to in order to be appreciated. Of course, you can have it played in the background, but that would make for a different experience.
In the end, music has been instrumental (pun?) in moving me, in making me appreciate its many faces, its many nuances and variations, and the way it touches me.