LISTENING SKILLS

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (06-15-23)

 

     As a musician, I think it's important to expose yourself to different genres of music, and give them a fair chance. Go ahead and try exposing yourself right now, and I guarantee you'll be surprised at the results.

     I like a little of everything. I like the type of jazz that starts with a good melodic phrase, and then wanders off, delves into some solos, takes a bus trip to Toledo, Ohio, has a baby, takes up pottery, develops a gambling problem, then finds its way back to the original phrase it started with and makes a smooth landing. It's exhausting and satisfying.

     I like country music if I'm in the mood for it. Some of the sweetest ballads known to music are crooned and drawled out of Nashville in an accent so thick I have a hard time believing we're in the same country. I don't even mind if you tell me how you can't believe you lived this long without me in one song and in the next you're loading up your pickup truck, your beer cooler and your shotgun at the same time and won't tell me where you're going.

     I even like disco music, if the lighting is right. You'll know the lighting is right if your ophthalmologist can't tell you what's wrong with you the next day. But for me music has to have a melody. It's not enough just to spew out a bunch of lyrics from a rhyming dictionary using Auto-Tune so fast that my brain can't process them. Take your music player and put on a hip-hop song, and if you can't whistle it in the shower, then it's probably not for me. If you've electrocuted yourself during that little exercise, please accept my apologies.

     A few weeks ago I had a double dose of live music on a Friday night. It started with a wonderful performance of Brahms' Requiem by the Hudson Chorale and the Westchester Choral Society along with a professional orchestra and two soloists. There was no pitch corrector, there was no lip syncing, there was no choreography, and it was quite beautiful. It's something that young people need to hear so that it can be proven that hard work and dedication really mean something in music. I like to just sit there and absorb the music, as I am highly absorbent, like a quilted paper towel.

     The words were in German, but Brahms was one of the few composers that embraced translations of his work. I don't speak any German, but my English isn't that much better. But I got the general idea. What I couldn't figure out was when to clap. The guy next to me whispered to me that you clap at the end of a movement. If people clapped at the end of my movement I would be flattered and appalled at the same time. I waited until the orchestra stopped and no one was moving, but it still wasn't the end of the movement.

     Anyone can audition to join the Hudson Chorale, you don't need to be formally trained, although some of the singers are. I imagine my first interview going something like this: "So, Mr. Melén, have you had any training?" "Well, my Mother always played opera music around the house, so I guess you could say that I am house-trained." "And what is your range?" "It's a Whirlpool." "What part do you sing?" "I'm a baritone, like Frank Sinatra." "Oh, meaning you sing like Frank Sinatra?" "No, meaning I like Frank Sinatra."

     After the concert I went to a local tavern, where a Southern rock cover band was playing, and that was fun too. They did "Ramblin' Man," that song where "I was born in the backseat of a Greyhound bus;" I can't remember if they charged me two fares. They played that Lynyrd Skynyrd song where they sing "Eww that smell" while I was in the men's room, and I had to wait in there for almost six minutes until it was over. They did that song where they sing "Can't you see, can't you see what that woman, she been doin' to me...." The fact is that without my glasses I could not tell for sure what she was doing but it didn't look THAT bad.

     What do you feel like right now? Maybe some Hot Tuna with Black Eyed Peas and Red Hot Chili Peppers, some Meatloaf with Bread and Cream, Cranberries, Raspberries, Peaches & Herb and Salt-N-Pepa. Whatever your taste, taste it live. That's what makes music into an experience.