Listeners :: Essays Papers

Listeners My hands were dirty. I was playing in the mud with the Dolinger’s up the street when I heard the bell ringing faintly in the distance. It was time to go home. A sweet soft summer breeze pushed me down Delaware Av. to my house on the corner. This same warm fresh breath of air then gracefully passed through the windows of my living room and finally escaped my home overflowing with music. I walked into a dark and cool living room, my sisters not far behind me. We were immediately greeted with the pleasantly pungent odor of cigar smoke and the powerful music of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. My dad was lying on the couch, his eyes closed, listening. Only the light above the kitchen stove was on. He would invite and encourage us to listen with him. Since we were only 5 and 6 we would naturally prefer to mindlessly watch the Brady Bunch. But on occasion, I remember sitting and listening with him. I remember dancing around the room or lying on cool hardwood floors. I remember feeling the vibrations of the speakers through the floor, tickling my body, imprinting the notes on my soul. My dad provided an environment in which we might learn to appreciate the enriching sounds of various musical genius’s from Copland to the Grateful Dead. He gave me an amazing gift, the opportunity to learn how to simply listen. Sweets sounds, melodies, rhythms and beats, have been changing and growing for as long as man has walked the earth. Music is not just a pastime or entertainment, but a method of communication, of identification, of bonding, and learning about other people and cultures around the world. As I grew older, I learned that music or rather the listeners of such enrapturing sounds, make up a very powerful and unique community. Music has always been apart of my life. However, it did not begin to recognizably contribute to my own personal development until sixth grade when my then best friend of six years, Colleen, and I began to â€Å"travel down two different paths†.