Hello Ardith,

On Tue 2039-Apr-12 18:16, Ardith Hinton (1:153/716) wrote to Richard Webb:

RW>  [...]  not reconciling what you see with what's
RW>  happening is another part of what those things
RW>  do, always remember they were created as munitions.


AH>            Could be.  The war pipes... i.e. the kind others think of
AH> when they think of bagpipes... were *supposed* to scare the heck out
AH> of the enemy.  They sound nice from a few miles away, though, if one
AH> is not in any danger....  :-) 

RIght, but when they're oming close they make quite a noise
.




AH>  I wonder if these suburban kids relate to rap music
AH>  because their parents don't... [BEG].

RW>  I think that's a big part of it with the young folks,
RW>  as it was with young folks of our generations too.


AH>            Things I've learned from hanging out with the
AH> neighbours... after I had been listening to 1960's folk rock in a
AH> teenage girl's bedroom, her father said to her "Why don't you listen
AH> to good music like [what I'm listening to at the moment]?"  I
AH> realized immediately that for him good music = what he liked, and I
AH> recognized the station as one which played a lot of "golden oldies".
AH> So as a band teacher I estimated the average age of the parents in
AH> the audience & did a number at every concert which was popular when
AH> they were teenagers.  ;-) 

GOod plan.  Makes the parents feel better too when they hear something they
recognize .


RW>  ONe thing that helped me was the older kids at the
RW>  school for the blind, where ad hoc combos of musicians
RW>  were as ubiquitous as sandlot baseball among
RW>  neighborhood sighted kids.

AH>            Meanwhile Dallas & I... being, as it were, neither fish
AH> nor fowl... spent much of our time soaking up anything we could find
AH> which had printing on it.  Yet IMHO we were all honing the skills
AH> we'd need in our adult lives.  :-) 

YEp, hopefully will never quit "honing my skills."

RW>  Also, I had an uncle who was heavily into older forms
RW>  of jazz.  HE could sit down with me as I was listening
RW>  to rock 'n roll, then put something else on the stereo
RW>  and show me how one lead to the other.

AH>            Good pedagogical technique!  I did much the same with my
AH> father one day when I was alone at home with him.  By then I was in
AH> university, and I had a recording of Wanda Landowska playing
AH> harpsichord with a bunch of stops which I've never heard used
AH> anywhere else.  As usual my father was listening to hard rock on the
AH> radio because he was accustomed to a noisy work environment & felt
AH> uncomfortable without background noise... i.e. his preferred variety
AH> of noise. He also liked honky-tonk piano, however.  I explained to
AH> him that the sound of the harpsichord was similar & persuaded him to
AH> listen for a few moments.  When the music ended I could have put on
AH> anything with a harpsichord in it.  And as a band teacher I often
AH> demonstrated how something which was on the current hit parade was
AH> an updated version of the music teens say they don't like....  :-)) 

INdeed, we find it easier to get behind the unfamiliar if
it's presented in a familiar context.

RW>  [...] this was late '60's early '70's, and exploration
RW>  was the driving force, at least in my world.

AH>            Uh-huh.  In retrospect I'd say the music which grabbed my
AH> attention at the same age differed a bit... but not too much... from
AH> what I was used to. 

rIght, but there again my cultural frames of reference were
all over the map, thanks to residential school with kids
from all sorts of backgrounds.

AH>            Exploration is a driving force with teens & young adults.
AH> They are learning by trial & error what works for them, and
AH> stimulating the development of the appropriate brain cells.  If
AH> their parents weren't so incredibly boring they probably wouldn't
AH> have the courage to leave home & take on that big scary world
AH> outside.  Seems to me both of us were more or less on target there. 
AH> :-) 

INdeed, and now in middle age I find myself reluctant often
to explore the unfamiliar, being just waht I criticized my
parents for eing in fact.  THat's one thing i enjoyed about
living in NEw ORleans, it forced me to come out of the
cocoon of the familiar a bit once e in awhile, try a food
from somewhere else, check out some music that I normally
wouldn't encounter, etc.

Regards,
           Richard
--- timEd 1.10.y2k+
 * Origin:  (1:116/901)