Music Thursday - Where Are We Coming From?

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Music is one important catalyst.

I suppose all of us have, at one time or the other, felt their relationships with the world helped or hindered by music. Usually that goes through cues of belonging to a particular musical tribe: jazzers, post-rockers, indies, hipsters, punks, folk listening folk,... and as this information, visibly displayed, means that you will be instantly acknowledged and supported by members of your group even when no affiliation of other kind exists it also means that this visual cues will make you easier to be indentified so you could be shunned or downright abused by other tribes.

Tricky business.

I consider myself musical nomad of  sort. I go where I please and raise tent where I see fit. And I do not do this ignoring the fact that this makes me vulnerable - I do this with full knowledge of things that may happen and with preparedness to defend my position from everything that may happen.

But how did this came about, my nomadic trait? Obviously there should be mechanisms that prevent that kind of behavior if music is so important social indentifier. There are such mechanisms; people pick partners from their own musical tribe, raise their children in its spirit (just like with religious practices), encourage and reward listening behaviors to form appropriate listening habits. There's even social contract considering appropriateness of event-going in relation to event-goer age ("My god, I was the oldest one there!").


So how did I get to be a nomad?


I was born and raised in a family with wide music tastes; everyone held their own little space of the palette and I got to be raised in the spirit of all their shit. My mum loves Bosnian folk music (Ne klepeći nanulama), my father is old-school rocker with ear for classical music (Creedence meet Beethoven), grandpa was stylish military guy that learned how to ride in Vienese Spanish Riding School and held a special place in his heart for marches and my nana, who did not speak a word of French, fell in love with Salvatore Adamo and knew all his songs by heart...

And none of them imposed restrictions to music of the other one.

I never heard in my house that any song or musical genre is better or worse than the others, only that one is personally preferred over the other. I've seen my military grandpa hum to all kinds of music as he went on with his haberdashery business and I treasured the story of my father conquering my mother's heart by playing Angie (Rolling Stones) to her.

We listened (and still do) to radio a lot and frequently engage in "Name the song in" game just for the fun of it.

This is where I'm coming from.

How about you?