Music and Memory Lane

 with Grandpa Alton in Fisher, MN, circa 1985

I spent the better part of (Niall's napping hours during) this week organizing my music files (see previous post about the trauma of having "unrecoverable" files on a Mac), most of which were listened to in my teen years or early 20s. I was able to "save" (via an onerous google drive upload/download process) most of my favorite tracks from my Mac, and uploaded the rest from what CDs I still had. While I do listen to music (other than children's preschool songs!) here and there (at the holidays, during labor, while running, and sometimes via our Echo dot in the kitchen), most of my individual listening these days is to podcasts. However, this week has reminded me how incredibly mood-boosting music can be and has helped me reflect on the many years (decades, in fact!) of my life during which music played a huge role and provided me lots of memories-- from listening and playing along as a kid with my pianist grandfather Alton, to piano and flute lessons in middle and high school,  to high school choirs, Symphonic band concerts, trips, and young love, and then to my somewhat unexpected music Minor degree, lasting friendships, choral directing, and music recitals in college (which is about where my music "career" ended. While I continued to play my flute with church during medical school, I am sad and somewhat ashamed to say that haven't touched it since residency. My parents have a very nice upright Petrof piano which I may accept one day but which still lives in McLean. I'm tempted to change that at some point in my "adult" life, although I can't see that the timing is quite right just yet with two young kids and next to no free time).

Most of the CDs I dug up dated from high school, including band recordings, or college, and also included some "family CDs"  that contained recordings of my beloved grandfather (an extraordinary musician, who played piano "by ear," and who died twenty years ago while I was a high school junior) tickling the ivories, my great-uncle Duane (who died in a fire accident in 2014) singing, and some recordings of the oral histories of some of my grandmother's veteran relatives. Hearing Grandpa's voice on the CD introducing one of his ragtime pieces took my breath away.

I also found some old cassettes that had survived multiple moves/purging due to my difficulty parting with them (with some classical songs, but some "mixes"), and, while not really "music," I also dusted off my much-loved-during-childhood movies on VHS (which I'll decided I'd part with this week, even though we haven't jettisoned the two VCRs in this house... yet [but which is the plan]). I wonder if kids of the future will view cassettes and videotapes as we sometimes admire records (or rather wonder how primitive was technology of my 1980s childhood)!

 

 (some of these movies are Kelvin's)

Why is music so nostalgic?  Here's an article from Slate which explains, in part, why music of "youth" (12-22) evokes so much emotion-- it's because these are the years during which you are becoming your "enduring self."  It makes total sense!

While both Kelvin and I are (he more in Marie Kondo-style) committed to more minimalism (less stuff and less waste/consumerism) in our lives, it's much easier not to buy things than to part with items which I know rationally have no practical value (who else has two VCRs in their house or still has videotapes?!) but which have so much sentimental value.  While I hope to have (for now!) preserved and backed up my musical digital files for the future (until another newer technology comes along!), I will always have my memories. And maybe I'll pick up my flute one of these days.

 ?1987

Piano trio 

 more time playing with Grandpa Alton c 1988

with Dad, ~1991

Bangkok? 1990 or so

c. 1991, Fisher, MN

before a Christmas gig in high school

c. 1996 at the White House East Room

 

Senior Recital with Eva (Chang) Meyer at University of Richmond, 2003

(college graduation? 2003)