My Family as a Music-Culture

My family – my parents, I, and my brother – views music rather seriously, viewing music and musical talent as God-given. We believe that music is an essential way to praise God; this belief perhaps stems from that we are Lutheran. We value music’s ability to bring people together and to affect both the listener’s and the performer’s emotions. My parents value my brother’s and my training in Western Art music because, in my father’s words, “The pursuit of anything at a high level shows character, industriousness, and will to practice.” And oh yeah, my family also values music because we enjoy it.

So, how did and do we carry out these beliefs about music? My mother, who took some flute lessons when she was a girl, was in marching band, and has sung in church choirs for most of her life, plays flute and sings in the choir at church. She put us in children’s church choirs early. Soon my brother and I began to study Western Art music seriously, he as a violinist, I as a pianist. He and she both play in my church’s small “pit orchestra” which helps lead and accompany the hymn-singing. Occasionally my mother has us three sing a piece together as a musical offering during offertory or communion; she likes us to sing together. My father, who (according to himself) is not a musician, usually sings in the congregation.

Finding music ensembles to play or sing in (other than those at church) is a bit more difficult for homeschoolers, but my parents found a good children’s chorus in our area, ChildrenSong of New Jersey, that my brother and I sang in for several years. Later my brother joined the Philadelphia Sinfonia and is now Principal Violin II.

My brother and I both pursue our musical study on our instruments seriously; much of my family’s activities involving music stem from and support this study. We practice, take lessons, and perform in recitals and competitions. Part of the summer was reserved for this or that music camp. Sometimes our study was enjoyably supplemented by listening to CDs of Classical music and by attending recitals, concerts, and operas – the last most memorably as a telecasted Metropolitan Opera performance of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde in a movie theater which was the only time our family has been in a movie theater.

Music is not always used seriously in my family. Lunchtime in our kitchen is often an occasion of some vocal improvisation (or mishmash of Classical music) using whatever words we manage to come up with; the word “cockatoo” is a favorite for rhyming purposes. When my mother does the dishes, she often sings her own version of the song “When the Saints Go Marching In”:
Oh when the dishes jump into the dishwasher,
Oh when the dishes jump into the dishwasher,
They’ll be oh so very, very happy –
Not to be confused with ‘snappy’!

My family does not do much casual listening, to pop or rock etc. – we’re usually far too busy with homeschool and practicing. So my family’s repertory is mostly Western art music and church music with some occasional World music thrown in. Sometimes I compose music which my brother supports and sometimes notates using LilyPond.

Of course, all these musical activities involve materials. Besides our main instruments, the flute, the violin, and a parlor grand piano in the living room, our house contains a digital piano which I began my study on, an autoharp, and a variety of novelty instruments we rarely play: a half-size guitar, a zither, a thumb piano, a tin whistle, Russian flutes, a Chime-Along, mountain ocarinas, a harmonica, a melodica, and a small drum. We also have two music stands, lots of printed Classical and Church music including 6 hymnals, and equipment to play our CDs and LPs on. Because I play organ, I also have organ shoes and, when at home, use my church’s organ. Our costumes in performances are the usual Western Art music ones.

I would say my family is rather musical. At least, music has become more important as my brother and I devote ourselves to it. And music has helped knit my family closer together.