Lydia Writes About Music

 I ended up interviewing both of my parents (separately) for this. The interviews started with the same question and ended up going in two different directions, but there were some interesting commonalities and, although I won’t be going into it here, I got some fascinating insight into the lineage of my own relationship with music.  I started out by asking about their first memories or experiences of music. My Dad talked about listening to the music that his parents listened to, mostly Rock and Protest music. He mentioned artists like Simon and Garfunkel, Peter Paul and Mary, Carol King and Roberta Flack. As we got further into the interview he talked more about what drew him to certain songs and he said that lyrics were are what really draw him into songs. I’ll get into that more in just a moment, but the following video is a song by Peter, Paul, and Mary that I think demonstrates beautiful, heartbreaking storytelling with incredible simplicity. This song is a personal favor...

The music of Appalacia, much like its geological history, is connected to traditions and histories from across the world. While primarily associated with rural, white “hillbilly” culture, Appalachian folk music has been equally influenced throughout its history by the musical traditions of poor Scottish and Irish immigrants as well as those of enslaved Africans who settles (or were brought by force) into the region. The geography of the region influenced the instruments that are now associated with Appalachian folk music and its various descendants, like bluegrass and old-time. The mountains are not easy terrain to traverse with large, fussy instruments like pianos, so the portability of an instrument became very important. Instruments like the banjo, fiddle, and mountain dulcimer with the mandolin and guitar coming on later, alongside those that are fashioned from everyday household objects like the washboard, spoons, or washtub bass became the go-to choices for musicians living in th...

I have so many thoughts when it comes to the intersection of music and gender; almost like a spiderweb, where each thought connects to a network of other thoughts and one vibrations reverberates through the whole web.  My first thought may seem like a non sequitur, but stick with me for a moment: I think about the relationship between women and arts at large and how it is viewed by society. It is common for the visual arts that are traditionally associated with women (sewing, quilting, embroidery, knitting, crochet, etc) to be placed under the category of “craft” whereas other forms of art, those that are more traditionally acceptable for any gender, are placed under the category of art. I wonder if the difference is that some of these crafts come from necessary everyday tasks (making and mending clothes, etc) that were made beautiful by those who were doing them. Maybe because there was an expectation that these things would get done, and that they would be done well, then they we...

 As I was thinking about this post I realized that the rituals that I am most familiar with are primarily religious in nature. I spent most of my life attending church regularly, first a Catholic church and then protestant nondenominational churches. In both settings music is used every week through the services. There is often music playing before the service, and music to call the congregation’s attention to the altar, and music to sing together, and music to close the service.  I rarely, if ever, go to church anymore due to a number of reasons that I am, honestly, unwilling to go into. I also rarely, if ever, listen to the music of the church anymore, but I heard and played so much of the music that I can still recall nearly every lyric to a large number of both hymns and more contemporary worship songs to this day. And so I am struck by how influential and meaningful the music of rituals can be.  This past week was the anniversary of my uncle’s death and, while I was ...

 Hello, all! My name is Lydia and I am a Music Therapy major and violinist. Like many people, music has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. While my parents don’t consider themselves musical (I think the music therapy student in me would disagree with their assertion on that), there was always music playing in our house: James Taylor, Jimmy Buffett, Billy Joel, Journey, Jim Croce and several Broadway musicals were all big in our house.  I think my grandfather was listening to the Brahms Violin Concerto when I first really heard the violin and I was immediately obsessed. I loved everything about this instrument and knew I wanted to play it. I think I was around 5 years old.  I was finally able to start violin lessons three years later (three years is an eternity for a kid) and I haven’t looked back since. In the intervening years I picked up several other instruments and went to college (the first time) for Music Theory. Then I got married, moved to Ger...