Music and Family

 I decided to interview my dad since he is not a musician and he has a very different perspective regarding music than I do which I thought would be very interesting. My dad grew up in the 80s and 90s which is quite relevant to his answers throughout the interview, and he also grew up in Australia outside of Melbourne which may also be relevant. Here is a picture of both of us!

                                   

The first question I decided to ask him was how he would define music, which I thought would be interesting to hear a non-musician’s perspective. He said that it was “sound with some sort of order to it” which was a very musician answer, especially from when we discussed how we would define music in Music History I. He described that his music taste developed when he was in high school and hasn’t changed much since then. He mostly enjoys alternative, heavy rock, and he also described that he used to go to rock concerts pretty often. The first concert he went to was Billy Joel and the most recent concert he went to was an orchestral concert of hard rock music, which he clarified that Thunderstuck was part of and that was his favorite song at that concert (the song below is a cover of Thunderstruck by two cellos that he really enjoys). However, he said his most favorite concert was the Foo Fighters because it lasted for more than 3 hours. He also responded that these concerts were his favorites memories with music. 

He said his earliest memory of music was in music class in primary school, which he clarified that he did not enjoy because he does not enjoy singing and everyone else in the class were not good at listening to directions (likely because they were 8 years old). He said that he wishes to erase any and all country music from his brain because he is not a fan and it is one of his least favorite parts of living in the South (once he left a restaurant because they were playing country music too loudly). He said that one of his least favorite country songs is “Achy Breaky Heart”. He has never played an instrument or sung in a choir, and while he does not wish to ever sing, he wishes that he could either play guitar, because they are pretty accessible, or french horn “mindset they’re just weird.”

He said that he does enjoy listening to the music I play, especially coming to my concerts, but he likely would not really listen to classical music on his own if I was not involved. He described that his connection to music is more emotional than intellectual because he doesn’t really think about music intellectually. Due to the time he grew up, he said that he caught the very end of music being on records, but that he mostly used CDs and cassettes until streaming became popular. His parents didn’t give him any musical restrictions growing up content wise, though he mentioned that they did get more upset about the volume level of his music, especially since it wasn’t something they were super interested in. He recalled the time that he first heard Nirvana and he wondered what kind of music that was and when he asked his parents they said they were “glad that he doesn’t listen to that kind of music,” but then just a few years later he would start listening to Nirvana and he still listens to them regularly to this day, and his favorite song Nirvana song is “Come As You Are.” He mentioned that he had two friends in high school where they would all share music together which is how he found lots of the music that he still enjoys.