The Sound of Music

My wife reminded me recently of a moment I'd completely forgotten. When our son was born, he had some trouble with jaundice and with getting his breathing regulated, so he was kept in the hospital for 6 days. His room was not quite the high-tech hospital room teeming with expensive equipment... it always seemed to me more like a storage room or perhaps an exam room with a "baby hospital bed" jammed into it.

While he was there, there usually was a radio playing in the background -- after all, we couldn't be there 24x7, so he was alone most of the time. On this particular long-forgotten occasion, I turned to my wife and expressed a festering anxiety: "I don't want my boy to grow up a country-music fan."

Well, for the first seven years, at least, I seem to have avoided that fate, but only because he's a musical omnivore. I only wish that there were an elementary version of "Name That Tune"; I could get a pretty good college fund started for him, because if he hears any sort of mildly kid-oriented tune (he's also pretty adept with Christmas music), he will identify it. And if it's playing anywhere in the environs, he will hear it. This is actually a useful extension of the axiom that says a kid can hear anything but his parents telling him what to do.

He certainly gets plenty of exposure in plenty of directions. When I was a kid, my parents were "easy listening" devotees. If you're not familiar, easy listening is basically elevator music, (occasionally) with words. While this has come in handy recently, since the "easy listening" music of the 60s & 70s makes up most of the "easy piano" books of the present day, it didn't necessarily help me develop a sophisticated musical palate.

In fact, I was surrounded; since I lived outside the school district I attended, I was transported not by a standard bus -- nor even by the now-legendary Short Bus -- but in fact in a regular station wagon with the rest of the literal outcasts (how sad is that, that I didn't even merit the Short Bus?). Every afternoon, all the other kids were called by bus number; then the voice intoned, "Station wagon, please... station wagon." Not that I'm bitter.... anyway, Mrs. Dickenson, the driver, was an aficionado of that same easy listening station. Narrow range of musical exposure -- that, and hymns! -- is what I'm getting at here. I was in high school before I figured out you could do a song with an electric guitar and drums.

The kids today, however (or "Those kids these days", if you prefer, but I'm not wearing my flannel shirt and suspenders today) get all kinds of chances to hear all kinds of cool stuff. Just watching kid TV, look (listen) what they can hear:

• Ziggy Marley does the theme from "Arthur" (the aardvark, not the drunken Dudley Moore!)
• Little Richard sings the "Magic School Bus" theme
• They Might Be Giants do opening AND closing themes for "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse", as well as "Higglytown Heroes"
• Taj Mahal performs the theme for "Peep and the Big, Wide World"
• and many, many more... perhaps you get the point

In addition, one of his favorite tapes is the soundtrack to Fantasia, which is honest-to-goodness, no-kidding-around, Philadelphia Orchestra classical music. Not only that, but he was flipping through TV channels not long ago when he stopped, transfixed by a sound I don't think he'd ever heard before.

It was polka, and he was clearly diggin' it.

He doesn't say no to much, although when we are in the car he will occasionally ask me to change the station if there are too many "girl songs" (i.e. female singers). Just in case, though, I stick to the radio preset buttons -- that way I know we're not going to wander into a country station by mistake.