Culture

Ah, Spring!  It is finally cruisin’ weather.  The temperatures are mild enough now that I can have my windows down and crank up the music.  I have a varied taste in my listening repertoire.  For example, just yesterday I was coming home from the grocery store and a song named Indestructible by Disturbed came on my iPod followed by Chopin. I love riding through town with something like Beethoven, Wagner, or Chopin on my sound system because it keeps people guessing.  One normally doesn’t hear that kind of music full bore.  They hear a variety of rap music with bass that makes ones windows rattle, so why not hear the classics that way?

I think that most people in the place where I live don’t know about music because all they know about is what they hear on the radio or Internet Radio.  There are very few classical music stations around anymore so the appreciation of the classics is not available on a daily basis.  Children are not always exposed to classical music in schools as they should, and if they are, it is small amount and not generally heralded as important.  But then again, I am not a teacher or have a school aged child any longer, so maybe I am wrong here.  I suspect though that I a not.

Culture is not just the music, or customs, of your ancestors, but music and customs of everyone’s ancestors.  Like history, I believe we need to know where we come from a musical standpoint as well as from a sociological standpoint.  The basis of what we are listening today is as important to understand as knowing how our fore parents lived.  That way we can understand and appreciate how far we have come.