On Demand
Mother of Music
By David Garland
May 9, 2008
I think it’s safe to say that Evening Music listeners are music lovers. At some point in your past you had a musical experience that changed you, that opened you to the power of music.
For me it probably happened at some of the concerts I saw when I was young: the British band Soft Machine opening for the Jimi Hendrix Experience in 1968, or Rahsaan Roland Kirk performing with the Mothers of Invention the next year. Or seeing a performance of Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana” in which my father sang.
But before those musical encounters outside my home, there was the music inside my home. Music was very important to my parents, especially my father, Kenneth Garland. He was an advertising executive, but I understood—because everyone who knew him understood—that he loved music. He sang classical music and popular songs, accompanying himself on the piano. My mother, Barbara Garland, enjoyed acting, and many times my parents were the leads in local theater productions in Lexington, Massachusetts. And they sang the lead roles in a series of locally-created (and quite good) musicals. That’s Mom kneeling on stage in the photo, circa 1960. My father took the other photos before I was born.
On this Mother’s Day weekend I think back to what seemed at the time to be an average childhood: coaching my mother on her lines, watching my parents rehearse, hearing them sing, seeing the joy of their creative work with friends, and knowing that they loved what they were doing. I’m aware now that my childhood (which I shared with my brother Chris) wasn’t average, and I’m so grateful for that unusual environment, where creativity was an everyday joy.
Mothers are the font of all music. With tuneful words of affection and with lullabies, they are the origin of music for each of us. They help establish the musical world we grow into, and our receptivity to it.
What tuned you in to the power of music? Mother’s lullabies? A concert? A particular song? Something you heard on the radio? Please leave a comment.
And thanks to all of you who responded to this Blog over the last two weeks. In your answers to my question, “what are doing as you listen to Evening Music?” a fascinating group portrait was created, one which I imagine can be as interesting to you as it is to me (see below).
Comments
Comment from Rayna
Date: May 9, 2008, 7:37 pm
One of my earliest memories (aside from listening to my parents’ 78 recordings of “Songs of the Red Army,” and Paul Robeson’s “Ballad for Americans” - was when my mother took me to a hot, crowded church in Newark, NJ to hear Marian Anderson sing. I might have been 10 years old.
Also, my mother always had WNYC on the radio: I grew up with The Masterwork Hour and my earliest memories are of the Century old Chimes of City Hall & the opening bars of Beethoven’s Fifth, which I think was their theme.
Thanks, ma!
Comment from Nicholas Gatti
Date: May 9, 2008, 10:05 pm
My earlist memory is of Ray Charles, “Hit the Road, Jack” as I played on the floor next to Mom’s shoes. Over and over and over again. I imagine it was quite the hit record to be played so often.
There were the old 78s of Jolson, Hoagy Carmichael Danny Kaye and Jimmy Durante. Military songs (the Caissons Go Rolling Along was a particular fave of this son of an Army sargent).
Next to all of that was Flower Drum Song and Joey Dee and the Starlighters–Mom’s faveorites. Top it off with Shirley Temple’s Greatest Hits and you have a typical afternoon’s music for four children ranging from 2 to 6 years.
Is it any wonder that there ain’t much that I will outright *not* listen to. I can usually find some listenable quality in any sound that a creator will call music.
The wide range of different music that *you* play has made me a fan of yours ever since my first “Spinning on Air” show many years ago. Annette Peacock still sings in my musical memories.
Thank you, David.
Comment from andrew
Date: May 9, 2008, 10:54 pm
Coincidentally, my parent’s 78 recordings of South Pacific and Kiss Me Kate are probably my earliest specific musical memory but I am otherwise clueless as to where my musical interest comes from. It is without any technical training or understanding whatsoever but nevertheless essential to my daily life. And to this day, hearing those peerless songs takes me back to another time.
Then there was rock and roll in Brooklyn followed by jazz in college from Big Sid Catlett to Miles et al, and of course classical. But anything of quality will do, as Spinning invariably provides. Many thanks for your impeccable taste and commentary.
Comment from Lori Goldschmidt
Date: May 10, 2008, 9:42 pm
Dear David,
This is my first time corresponding with a radio program producer. You asked what our earliest experiences turned us on to classical music. I am 79 years old and was an undergraduate at Brooklyn College in 1947. Up until then I enjoyed classical music but didn’t go out of my way to hear it. My mother sang me lullabies in Russian when I was a baby. My Dad was an avid listener to radio broadcasts of operas on Sat. afternoons. But it was dear old Dr. Bakst, at Brooklyn Coll. from whom I took Music 101 that changed my life. The majority of my classmates were indifferent, and just trying to pass. A nucleus of us were Dr. B’s delight. We eagerly listened, followed it up by buying 78 RPM records, and got increasingly excited as the course progressed.
For years music was an important accompaniment to other activities. But, I was a math major. Along the way I learned to play, and eventually teach the recorder. In 1961 at a music camp in Canada I was introduced to Orff-Schulwerk. That really changed my life. I gave up the math and became a full time teacher of children using the Orff approach. Orff workshops and summer week-long courses and the annual OS conferences were highlights of my years from ages 30 to 70. I still own an entire set of Orff instruments and am now using them with senior citizens in the retirement community where I live. I still teach the recorder, and am a devoted listener to both WNYC and WQXR.
I would love to hear from anyone out there who had Dr. Bakst at Brooklyn College.
Lori Goldschmidt
Comment from Charles Wendell
Date: May 11, 2008, 8:35 pm
Now at 78 my clearest memory of music is racing home the three blocks each day from kindergarten at 5 years of age to catch the sign-off theme before 3:00 P.M. of one of my mother’s “soap operas.” I had no idea of what the music was or by whom, nor did I ask. All I knew was that I had to get home in time to hear those exquisite sounds. Much later in adulthood, when I thought the experience had long evaporated, I realized that the music was Debussy’s Clair de Lune, still one of my favorite works. At the same age my next door neighbor was my surrogate grandfather “Papa Gee,” who grew a beautiful vegetable garden and who played the piano. I would beg him to play for me, then, when he did, I’d run home in tears. Not much has changed.
Comment from painter
Date: May 11, 2008, 8:39 pm
My mother’s Beetles 45’s…
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