I grew up in a house of music.
My parents played Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, Perry Como on the hi-fi. Mostly, I remember the musicals: "Camelot," "Kiss Me Kate," Oklahoma."
I was singing show tunes long before The Beatles arrived on the "Ed Sullivan Show" in 1964 to convert me to rock 'n roll, pop and folk.
As my parent's home was a house of music, so too have been the homes I've had over the years.
Music has been a single thread woven into every apartment, every home, every move I've made from high school to college, from college to first jobs, from bachelor to married, from married to divorced to remarried, from full house to empty nest.
Music has been a single thread woven into every apartment, every home, every move I've made from high school to college, from college to first jobs, from bachelor to married, from married to divorced to remarried, from full house to empty nest.
Is music the best gift that mankind has given itself? In my book it is.
No other form of expression has a deeper affect on me. I'm a writer and appreciate what it takes to put word on paper, but even the best writing I've read doesn't have the power of music. Great writing doesn't stir me to weep. A song can.
Why is that?
It could be the redemptive, restorative power that music has on the spirit. It's evocative, not so much that it sparks a memory or an emotion tied to a particular event, but in the sense that it reaches deep in the soul.
Why, when I watched and heard Paul Potts sing "Nessum Dorma" for the first time did I start to cry? Heck, I couldn't even understand the Italian he was singing.
Why does "Defying Gravity" from the musical "Wicked" fill my chest with emotion?
Why, when I'm contemplative and need to sort through the jumble in the brain, do I turn to my guitar?
My most meticulously kept collection of anything is a very large three-ring binder with hundreds of pages of music dating back to the 1960s.
My Yamaha acoustic guitar, Martha (pictured above), which I've had since 1967, has been my companion longer than anyone or anything.
If there was a fire in the house and I had only one thing to carry out, it would be Martha. (I'm assuming my wife, Jane, could carry herself out, of course.)
The best thing about this gift is that I don't have to wait for Christmas ... or my birthday ... of Father's Day.
Music is a gift I open each and every day and am wowed with each new opening.
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