"Music is the shorthand of emotion." Leo Tolstoy

In my last post I wrote about literature. Now I write about music and I warn the reader, I will write about art.

I grew up in a musically constricted environment. My parents listened to “Country and Western” -   The Carter Family, Hank Williams, Slim Whitman, et. al. I loved them all and they all evoked emotion. When I became a teen-ager, “Rock-n-Roll” was being born. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it was a momentous time for pop music. Elvis Presley had a huge cultural impact beyond music. The time was ripe for him and he had the talent to deliver.

An aside: I have a theory that whatever the popular music is at the time you’re going through the hormonal changes of puberty is the popular music that haunts you the rest of your life. It resonates with your soul in a way no other music does.

In college my ears were opened to classical music. I had a classmate (thanks, Ian) who took me on as a charity case. He insisted that I listen to a piece of classical music.  I had probably been denigrating the genre out of ignorance. He played “Scheherazade” for me and I was hooked. I moved to other thematic works, “The Grand Canyon Suite,” “Finlandia,” “Bolero” and then graduated to the more subtle – string quartets, etc. My favorite symphony (sorry, Ludwig) is Franck’s only symphony. It has a tension build up and release rivaled only by sex. I count many of my musical favorites among classical. The aria from “Madam Butterfly” is a guaranteed tear jerker.

I’ve never learned to appreciate jazz.  Perhaps I needed the jazz equivalent to Ian to awaken me. It and rap I avoid – just don’t understand it, but enjoy folk – bluegrass, mariachi, rhythm ‘n blues, Cajun, et. al.

Music moves me in ways that literature and art can never.

2014 Lester C. Welch