Growing up I was enamored with the Simon and Garfinkel song, Sounds of Silence. More and more, I've been thinking about quiet and silence, language and sound, music and noise. The other day I caught only about 10 minutes of an interview with the author Don Campbell about his new book, "Healing at the Speed of Sound." Later, I read some less than flattering reviews of his work, but some of the central questions and ideas have intrigued me. One of the things he talked about was developing sound tracks for hospitals. How a different type of music would be used in an emergency room waiting room versus a surgery waiting room. How a different type of music would be used at 3 am versus 3 pm. He also talked about the use of music to make transitions in your day, music to go home with, music to start your work day with.
When I'm working I do like to have some music in the background. I used to only be able to sleep with some noise in the background, best would be talk radio, but music would help, too. I blame in on sharing my childhood bedroom with two sisters. We would talk at night and I would ask them to tell me stories before I fell asleep. I was so conditioned to that sound, that I found it difficult to sleep in a quiet room. About 3 years ago that changed. I now like having quiet at night, I like the silence. Why is that? Is that an age related change or something else?
Campbell also talked about how we react differently to the same piece of music depending on the setting. The same song in a car is different than hearing it performed live. I do enjoy live music and find it so much more enriching than recorded music. Is it the sound, the setting, the spontaneity of the performance? I'm not sure.
I've been interested in how music might be used with people who are sick or suffering anguish in some other way. Music can be soothing in times of stress or grief. I'm sure it can also be soothing in times of physical illness. I read an article about Alzheimers recently that talked about the use of music in caring for AD sufferers. How hearing music from a happy time in life could calm and soothe someone with memory problems. I wonder what music I would want to hear if I was losing my mind?
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Missing Mary
When is the right age to start feeling nostalgic? I used to laugh when my sons, at ages 8 and 12, would reminisce about their “childhoods,” but at 54 can I legitimately feel nostalgic for mine?
I was at a Noel Paul Stookey/Peter Yarrow concert a few days ago and spent most of the evening with tears on my cheeks. Obviously, you can't get past the fact that one member of their group is missing and while she was lovingly acknowledged throughout, Mary's absence was felt in every song. I was never a big Mary fan, she always seemed just a little too much larger than life for me. The duet of Noel Paul and Peter is wonderful and not to be missed, but hearing the two of them without her was a bit like listening to a stereo song in mono.
They started the concert with an analogy of folk music as a train. They got on while the Weavers, Pete Seeger and others were singing their songs, and have been riding the train for 50 years. Others have gotten on behind them and the train will go on once they have gotten off. (Okay, they said it much more poetically and powerfully, but I liked the imagery of being a passenger on the journey of life.) The whole evening had a sense of a farewell tour. Peter is looking frail, and to watch Paul, who towers over him, tenderly guide him on and off stage with an arm around his shoulders was touching. Peter, to his credit, plays the part of the aging Jewish radical to the hilt—stumbling, bumbling, and spouting a Yiddish phrase here and there.
Seeing them together is partly like watching an old married couple, but partly like watching two men who know firsthand how easily life can slip away. They are holding on and letting go at the same time. Every song seemed to take on a new meaning with mortality in the background, even one of my favorite children's songs, "The Garden Song”: "We are made of dreams and bones, Need a place to call my own, ‘Cause the time is close at hand.” Their songs had an intensity that night that can only come from age and experience, from feeling deep in your soul that things can be better but that you may not be there to see it happen.
I'd seen the trio in concert several times over the years in different venues but my folk music grounding goes back to my childhood. Growing up my dad would tune in a program called "The Midnight Special" on Saturday nights and turn the radio up so we could listen in our bedrooms as we went to sleep. I would hear Pete Seeger, the Kingston Trio, Arlo Guthrie, PP&M and Steve Goodman singing in my dreams. I rode the City of New Orleans, had Thanksgiving Dinner, and searched for unicorns while I slept. The appeal to me was strong--the messages were of hope and peace, the harmonies perfect, the melodies accessible. And after all, it is a lot easier to sing folk songs around a Girl Scout campfire than operatic arias. Hearing those songs live brought back my own memories of growing up, of singing their songs, of falling in love.
As I sat in the audience I was thinking about growing up in the Midwest, the way in which that "cultural" experience has shaped my life. I think there is a lot to be said for a Midwestern upbringing, actually. Midwesterners have a kind of sensibility and calm that I like in my life. We see problems, we fix them, we move on. There is not a lot of handwringing needed or tolerated. But the culture of the Midwest was not fertile ground for music. I guess we had Motown and square dances, but neither of those influences filtered much into my section of rural Indiana. By then we had radios and the music of the 60s; the Beatles and protest songs filled my life. It was the season of change and possibility.
I will now boldly and publicly admit to my one of my personal failings. Despite my PhD in sociology, I did not understand the term “sociological imagination” until years after I completed graduate study. How is that possible? Well, when I started graduate school my intention was to become a demographer. I had never had a sociology course and had no interest in the field. In fact, I sought out one of the few graduate programs specifically offering a PhD in demography. But, along the way, an advisor suggested a dual PhD in sociology as a way to increase my employment options and it seemed like a good idea. Perhaps everyone assumed that I already knew something about sociology or maybe I missed the day in our social theory class where C. Wright Mills was discussed (more likely I was there but inattentive—I did get a C in that class…). In any case, I was clueless about sociological imagination and the intersection of history and biography even when they were right under my nose.
One of the watershed moments of my graduate study was reading Norm Ryder’s article titled, "The Cohort as a Concept in the Study of Social Change." He argues that social change is driven by demographic change, the constant addition of new members and deletion of old ones. He goes on to talk about how each cohort is shaped by the historical influences they experience and how the effects of particular historical events will differ based on the age at which a cohort experiences them. Living through the 1960s as a young girl was a much different experience than that of Peter, Paul, and Mary who were 20 years my senior. Songs that to me were pretty and powerful, were passionate calls to action for them. Events that were troubling, but distant from my everyday life, intimately shaped their lives and careers for 50 years.
I doubt I will see Peter and Paul perform live again, but I’m glad I saw them again without Mary. I’m glad I was able to see them miss her, but to continue to sing with love, passion, and humor. Curious, I went back to Ryder’s article today and was stunned to read the first line of the abstract, “Society persists despite the mortality of its individual members...” Sounds a bit like a train ride to me.
I was at a Noel Paul Stookey/Peter Yarrow concert a few days ago and spent most of the evening with tears on my cheeks. Obviously, you can't get past the fact that one member of their group is missing and while she was lovingly acknowledged throughout, Mary's absence was felt in every song. I was never a big Mary fan, she always seemed just a little too much larger than life for me. The duet of Noel Paul and Peter is wonderful and not to be missed, but hearing the two of them without her was a bit like listening to a stereo song in mono.
They started the concert with an analogy of folk music as a train. They got on while the Weavers, Pete Seeger and others were singing their songs, and have been riding the train for 50 years. Others have gotten on behind them and the train will go on once they have gotten off. (Okay, they said it much more poetically and powerfully, but I liked the imagery of being a passenger on the journey of life.) The whole evening had a sense of a farewell tour. Peter is looking frail, and to watch Paul, who towers over him, tenderly guide him on and off stage with an arm around his shoulders was touching. Peter, to his credit, plays the part of the aging Jewish radical to the hilt—stumbling, bumbling, and spouting a Yiddish phrase here and there.
Seeing them together is partly like watching an old married couple, but partly like watching two men who know firsthand how easily life can slip away. They are holding on and letting go at the same time. Every song seemed to take on a new meaning with mortality in the background, even one of my favorite children's songs, "The Garden Song”: "We are made of dreams and bones, Need a place to call my own, ‘Cause the time is close at hand.” Their songs had an intensity that night that can only come from age and experience, from feeling deep in your soul that things can be better but that you may not be there to see it happen.
I'd seen the trio in concert several times over the years in different venues but my folk music grounding goes back to my childhood. Growing up my dad would tune in a program called "The Midnight Special" on Saturday nights and turn the radio up so we could listen in our bedrooms as we went to sleep. I would hear Pete Seeger, the Kingston Trio, Arlo Guthrie, PP&M and Steve Goodman singing in my dreams. I rode the City of New Orleans, had Thanksgiving Dinner, and searched for unicorns while I slept. The appeal to me was strong--the messages were of hope and peace, the harmonies perfect, the melodies accessible. And after all, it is a lot easier to sing folk songs around a Girl Scout campfire than operatic arias. Hearing those songs live brought back my own memories of growing up, of singing their songs, of falling in love.
As I sat in the audience I was thinking about growing up in the Midwest, the way in which that "cultural" experience has shaped my life. I think there is a lot to be said for a Midwestern upbringing, actually. Midwesterners have a kind of sensibility and calm that I like in my life. We see problems, we fix them, we move on. There is not a lot of handwringing needed or tolerated. But the culture of the Midwest was not fertile ground for music. I guess we had Motown and square dances, but neither of those influences filtered much into my section of rural Indiana. By then we had radios and the music of the 60s; the Beatles and protest songs filled my life. It was the season of change and possibility.
I will now boldly and publicly admit to my one of my personal failings. Despite my PhD in sociology, I did not understand the term “sociological imagination” until years after I completed graduate study. How is that possible? Well, when I started graduate school my intention was to become a demographer. I had never had a sociology course and had no interest in the field. In fact, I sought out one of the few graduate programs specifically offering a PhD in demography. But, along the way, an advisor suggested a dual PhD in sociology as a way to increase my employment options and it seemed like a good idea. Perhaps everyone assumed that I already knew something about sociology or maybe I missed the day in our social theory class where C. Wright Mills was discussed (more likely I was there but inattentive—I did get a C in that class…). In any case, I was clueless about sociological imagination and the intersection of history and biography even when they were right under my nose.
One of the watershed moments of my graduate study was reading Norm Ryder’s article titled, "The Cohort as a Concept in the Study of Social Change." He argues that social change is driven by demographic change, the constant addition of new members and deletion of old ones. He goes on to talk about how each cohort is shaped by the historical influences they experience and how the effects of particular historical events will differ based on the age at which a cohort experiences them. Living through the 1960s as a young girl was a much different experience than that of Peter, Paul, and Mary who were 20 years my senior. Songs that to me were pretty and powerful, were passionate calls to action for them. Events that were troubling, but distant from my everyday life, intimately shaped their lives and careers for 50 years.
I doubt I will see Peter and Paul perform live again, but I’m glad I saw them again without Mary. I’m glad I was able to see them miss her, but to continue to sing with love, passion, and humor. Curious, I went back to Ryder’s article today and was stunned to read the first line of the abstract, “Society persists despite the mortality of its individual members...” Sounds a bit like a train ride to me.
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