Tuning Up

My taste in music can best be described as "eclectic." A toodle through my record/cassette/CD collection brings up a whole range of music, from classical to jazz to pop to rock.

There was a time when my sister despaired of my ever listening to anything besides the Beatles. Really, she needn't have worried.

Over the years, I've developed a love for a lot of artists who didn't cross my path in childhood. Discovery of previously unknown artists is often by accident. Or maybe it's fate. I'll hear something on the radio or I'll pick up a CD at the library. Just because. That's how I discovered Kat Edmonson. And kd lang. And Julie London.

Music transports me. The Beatles take me to my childhood and my brothers, who played their records over and over nonstop until I could easily sing along. Mantovani's Italia Mia album brings my dad back to me, as do old Mitch Miller standards. Boz Scaggs and Steely Dan remind me of my antics in high school. Michael Jackson, Paul Simon and and Tears for Fears make me think of the time in my life when it was just me and the cat. "I Only Want to Be With You" was the song my husband sang to me from a phone booth (remember those?) that stood outside the Wendy's restaurant around the corner from my apartment. And my husband continues the tradition of wooing me, singing songs about me in the shower, putting his own lyrics to any tune you can name. (It's endearing, if frustrating when I'm trying to recall the real words to a song.)

So many memories tied to music. So many times I take music for granted, but honestly, I don't know what I'd do if I couldn't slip on my headphones and play keyboard or drums on the edge of my desk. Or crank up the radio in my car and wail away with Patsy Cline or Lesley Gore or Ella Fitz at the top of my lungs.Even background music has the power to set the mood. Some of the most popular Bugs Bunny cartoons are the ones set to classical musical. (Who can resist "The Rabbit of Seville"?). Music is life's soundtrack.

Of course, for every desperately wonderful thing in this world, there is a downside. "1,001 Strings plays the Beatles," for example. And those rotten songs that we call "brain worms," the ones that take up residence in your head, possibly for days, and will not be deposed, unless it's by an equally abhorrent melody.

Still, I'll take it all, the good, the bad, the off-key. Music adds the color and flavor to this drab world. And I feel blessed to have the ability to hear.

I might even acquire a taste for rap music someday.

Or not.