The Power of Music

I have always been a music lover.  I have been surrounded by it my whole life.  My grandfather used to play the saw (like an actual saw you would use to cut a branch off a tree) and sing.  My mother used to play the piano.  My father used to sing in school and therefore was always singing to songs on the radio.  He would always create a harmony that wasn’t there in the original song, and I always, ALWAYS marveled at it.    

As a child I played the clarinet.  In high school I sang in a choir and a select choir, and continued to do so in college.

So it’s safe to say, music is in me.  It’s a part of who I am.  Much like it is in everyone.

I’m always amazed at the power that music has.  If you are hearing something for the first time it can give you chills, make you teary eyed, or laugh until you are quite certain you will pee your pants. 

Music has the amazing ability to recall a memory to the point of not only remembering it, but feeling, and smelling the memory. 

To this day if I hear any song by Def Leopard I’m transported back to the Skating Rink trying to “Shoot The Duck” or waiting on the wall in complete embarrassment for “Gentlemen’s Choice”. 

If the song “Push It” by Salt n’ Pepa or “Mony Mony” by Billy Idol comes over the radio waves (YES, I still listen to the radio sometimes. Not ALL my songs are from iTunes) my mind immediately goes to the dances at High School.  Good LORD there was a lot of butt shaking going on!

Whenever I hear a song by Collin Raye, or George Strait my mind goes immediately to the homemade collaboration tapes (yes TAPES…they were how we listened to music and were created before CD’s for all of you youngsters out there) that my husband (then only friend) made for me and I remember the day he handed them to me standing next to his black car that had the cheesy ass dice hanging in the mirror.  I remember the touch of his hand and the smell of his cologne as he gave them to me.  But more importantly, I remember how I felt when I heard the songs.  How he had handpicked them just for me so that had to mean something, but what? Oh it couldn’t be anything…we’re just FRIENDS!   

Now that I’m an adult, what?  By age I AM an adult thank-you-very-much!  And I have my own home, with my own family.  There is music going on in the house all the time.  We use Tupperware for drums, hairbrushes and wooden spoons as microphones, spatulas as guitars and we SING!  Oh my, do we sing.  We sing about getting dressed, cleaning up the playroom, or going on an errand.  We sing about how much we love each other and then we sing just to be silly.  In my house of boys, there is always a song from one of the littles that involves poop, and THAT is when I turn on the iPod. 

Once the real music starts there is more singing…but this time not about poop.  And there is dancing.  There is so much booty shaking that we could create our own mini earthquake.  We dance as a group, I will slow dance with each of my boys because I’ll be damned if they are the ones that just step from side to side at school dances during slow songs.  I will dance with my husband while the boys watch.

Music fills our home and I LOVE IT!

My only hope is that when our boys are listening to music in their space age all-you-have-to-do-is-push-a-button-on-your-arm music players and the “oldies but goodies” come on…that their memories will transport them back to where we sang into wooden spoons, played the heck out of our spatula guitars, and they danced with their mother on the hardwood floors shaking their booties and learning how to properly dip a girl while the smell of dinner cooking on the stove filled the air. 

What role does music play in your home?  What song has given you your fondest memory?