Music

One of my 19 year old students continually has earphones in his ears and I asked him how often he listened to music! His reply was 'all the time', every hour of every day. Now that surprised me as I only occasionally listen to music - I almost wrote 'hardly ever'. I did read recently that music helps develop the brain, but as a teacher this is not as obvious to me as the theory might imply.

I was drummed out of the school choir whem I was 7, which may not have given me a feeling of welcome, particularly in church. God seemed only to like children who could sing!

This lack may be due to my coming from another age long ago. After all my growing up to the age of 15 covered the years 1939-1949 when perhaps the second world war prevented much music being practiced by anyone. I do remember the hymns in church, the songs of Vera Lynn (Harbour Lights), patriotic songs from America sung in school (John Brown's Body), German military songs (Lili Marlene), but these made little impact on me. I was quite intrigued to hear that perhaps King Henry VIII wrote 'Greensleeves'! It made him sound more romantic that the history books implied.

Later in my teens at school, we listened to Brahms and Bach during afternoon tea, but these were much too difficult for me to enjoy at the age of 14. It was only when I started work in London that I was able to go to the more popular concerts at the Albert Hall and Royal Festival Hall that I began to get a feel for music. But I found nusic too emotional and upsetting. Where others seemed to get profound enjoyment, I became depressed. Chopin conjured up visions of Polish Cavalry bravely fatally charging German 'Tiger' tanks, Tchaikovsky visions of Napoleons 'Grande Armee' perishing in the snows of Russian winter, and even of Viennese operetta with its military balls and beautiful countesses showed me a world that I could never hope to aspire to. So on the whole music can depress me. Even the beauty of the "Pastoral Symphony" is tinged with sadness in a countryside gone beyond recall. My reaction does not seem to be the case with other people.

The only music I really liked was Venezuelan folk music - Hugo Blanco and Simon Diaz - which I met on going to Caracas in 1961. The Venezuelans knew how to dance and I was entranced at the age of 26 by the sensuous, sinuous dancing of the 'meringue' by the prettiest nubile girls in the world (apart from the Philippines!). Unfortunately my own dancing was not good and most young people in 1962 were transfixed by American and Italian music. Folk music was not popular! I watch the young dancing in 2007 and am afraid it all looks rather primitive to me - a mating rite put on for the benefit of the tribal elders, of whom I am now one. It all certainly looks more fun and primeval that the dancing of 1950, but not so very civilised.

Then about 1962, the Beetles emerged from Liverpool. It was another ten years before I realised who they were and I had generally assumed all pop music must be American. I have never understood why the Beetles were so popular. Then as I travelled more, I began to feel the rhythms of Indian and Arabic music, but no one from the West seemed to hear what I heard! It was switched off before I had time to listem.

So I wonder. Is everyone uplifted by the sound of music or are there some people around who, like me, get depressed. Recently I have come to the conclusion that the reason I do not listen to music much is that it paints a sad picture of the world, or perhaps a picture of the world as it should be, but is not. No wonder I get depressed! My interest in music is related to society, history and human behaviour, and not so much to sound!