For The Love Of Music

It’s hard to say weather my love of music was something that I was born with or something I learned. Considering that I have 3 siblings that were raised in the same house, and none of them are as music crazed as I am (although they all have a healthy respect) I tend to lean towards "born with". However, having a father that lives and breathes music probably didn’t hurt.

My earliest memories are of sitting on my dad’s lap in front of a mixing board in his makeshift studio in our first house. Or sitting on a stool with headphones much to big for my little head, singing Give Said The Little Stream while dad got his mic levels right. I loved going with my dad on Saturday nights when he and his band played gigs. Dad played lead guitar and I would stand behind him, playing the shaker or tambourine, and singing my heart out while he sang 'Johnny Be Good'. Those were some of my favorite times of my childhood. Dad nurtured my love of music, buying me whatever CD I was dying for week after week. I would spend hours in my room listening and singing. Music was such a huge part of my childhood.

As I got older the recording studio in our basement got better. We sound proofed walls. We had an actual recording booth and dad made a very nice living writing and producing music. I loved to be in the studio when he was working. I loved every step of the process. I would get home from school and spend my afternoons sitting on the couch in his studio doing homework and listening to the music take shape. I would lie on the floor, under the keyboards, and listen for hours. I was very fortunate as a young child to meet some of the best musician around and to be a fly on the wall while they recorded in my dad’s studio. When I hit my teens I got to help sometimes, my help mostly consisted of hitting the record and stop button, but it was awesome. I helped a lot in the sound booth over the years. Dad would give me scripts for different projects, and I would head into the sound booth to record them for him. There was a time that I could be heard on the radio doing an ad for a local pizza joint. I wonder sometimes where dad and I could have gone together if I had been born with a singing voice. Unfortunately for both of us I wasn’t, but that didn’t stop me from loving music with a “purple passion”.

When I tell you that I love music it’s not just that I like to put a cd in my player and jam out, although that’s part of it. The fact is, music speaks to my soul. As much as I love TV and movies, music is the air I breathe. I was taught to enjoy ALL music not just one genre. I cut my teeth on such great artists as The Beach Boys, Ronnie Milsap, Reba McEntire, The Eagles, Fleetwood Mac. If you ask me what kind of music I like I will tell you “the music kind”. All music is beautiful, some types speak to me more than others but I appreciate it all. When I listen to music I don’t just hear a song. I hear the drum kit in the back and the rhythms, I hear the bass guitar, I hear the lead guitar, I hear the harmonies, I hear the music in parts and I hear something new every time I listen. I can almost instantly memorize the lyrics to any song I listen to. Not a talent worth much but it’s mine. So, you be the judge, was it nature or nurture? After a lifetime with myself I still can’t answer that question, but I do know I wouldn’t trade any of it.