For me, music and family go hand in hand like butter and bread, peanut butter and jelly, Linus and Lucy, and “Fred and Adele”, to borrow a line from a song in “Annie.” My dad sings, my mom sings and plays piano, my brother sings and plays drums, and numerous others of my family sing and play piano or other instruments.
To my family, music goes hand in hand with our belief system. We have a strong and rich Christian heritage, in which we have grown up around singing, playing, and using music as a form of prayer, worship, and enjoyment. I guess the most prominent activity in which we use music is in our churches. Since my dad is a pastor, you can often find him leading the music in a worship service. My mom plays piano for our church, and every once in a while I do as well. Every Sunday around 11:30am I become a child again and sing and dance with the kids in our Kids’ Church.
If you were a fly on a wall in my house, you would hear many sounds of music- me practicing the piano, my Dad and Mom going over the songs for next Sunday’s service, my brother singing in the shower, and many types of music from Chopin (classical) to Billy Joel(pop) to Gold City (Southern gospel) to Straight No Chaser (a cappella Christmas) to Gateway Worship (contemporary Christian) to the Bee Gee’s (soft rock 60’s).
What do we do with our music? Throughout my life and the life of my family, music has served as a form of worship, a form of enjoyment, a way to relieve stress, a career avenue, and a way to honor our friends and loved ones. Music brings us together.
Textually, my family listens to clean, uplifting music. We like funny music, positive music, and music that we can relate to whether on a spiritual or emotional level.
Materially, we own one piano, a drum set, and many instruments including maracas, egg shakers, recorders, one oboe, and anything that my brother can make into a drum. One of my fondest childhood memories is seeing my brother in the middle of the kitchen floor with pots spread out all around him, each one a differently pitched drum- whether literally or just in his imagination. He has even used ME as a drum. What a surprise!
Movement is an extreme part of our music. Whether it’s clapping hands, using sign language to portray a song, or just dancing/swaying to the beat, movement is a huge part of our Pentecostal denomination’s many ways of worshipping.
There really isn’t a way to sum this up other than to say that music is my life, day in and day out. It is a huge part of my church life, my home life, and my personal life. Music and family to me are inseparable.
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3 comments:
Good, thorough blog. I didn’t know you were Pentecostal, but church music has a strong influence in my household as well. (We’re Lutheran, so if any Classical music is performed in church it’s Bach.) You use every branch of Titon’s music-culture model, including movement and text, sub-branches I forgot (and ran out of room for) in my blog. Your organization is also quite clear, and I like the personality than shows through in your writing.
Yeah, at the mention of your brother singing, I still remember you telling me about how you and he found "Somewhere Out There" as a special song for the two of you. I also still think it's really sweet how close the two of you are. It's just swesome how your family uses music to really come together.
Worship music is one of the things that I like about going to Church. Admittedly I don't go much anymore, but I always liked singing with everyone else in the church. I may have daydreamed throughout the sermon and Gospel, but once the hymns come up, I was wide awake and ready to sing.
Hey, body drumming is fun. It has gotten me through many a boring bus ride.
Good Blog. But I don't necessarily think of Linus and Lucy as "going together"--Lucy was usually bent on making Linus's life miserable! And yes, good use of Titon's model.
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