Man, I had my eyes opened in a huge way last week when my son came to visit. He’s 15, almost 16, and has literally refused to have music be a part of his life in any way, which, while frustrating to me since it is so central to my life, was also ok in many ways. All I can do as a parent is put things on the table for him to see: music, art, photography, film, skiing, mountain climbing, etc…and he will “come to” what he wants on his on, no?
Well, last week, my usual question to him, “what are you listening to?” “what are your friends listening to?” yielded a new reply...as opposed to the usual “adolescent “leave me alone dad”…he pulled out a disc of tunes he and his friends cobbled together of stuff they are all listening to…man, what a shock! And what a very pleasant surprise…talk about diverse too…what a great mix of indie bands and unusual stuff combined with an all time great band, U2:
Of course then, over the T’day break we traipsed over to the local Tower for their sale and I bought him way too much of course, but it’s great to see him come to music in his own way. He may never groove to Mahler or Strauss, but, to mangle the Tower slogan, ”a life without music isn’t life.”