In Which Thora Learns She's the Bee's Knees

I'm not a musical person. Oh, sure, I played classical Guitar and the violin as a child and in school and such, but what I mean is that I'm not the kind of person who would ever own an ipod. I'll go weeks never listening to any music at all, and when I do half the time it's “Happy Tappin' With Elmo”, for Lydia's benefit. Usually I listen to music when no one else is there (well, grown-ups, Lydia and Elisheva don't count in this), so either in the car when I turn it up loud and sing to it, or when I'm cleaning the house, when I also sing to it. Unless there are no lyrics, of course. I most definitely do not sing along to The Planets.

Ever since high school others around me have had their music tastes, and sometimes they were eclectic and unique vocalists with something to say in a alternative rock way, and sometimes they were mass-publicized and Pop with nothing to say, but most of the time they were eclectic and mass-publicized and all saying the same things about nothing. I was eclectic too, but not in the hip and cool way (insert appropriate slang for my generation here, because I can't think of any). I listened to Cat Stevens and Peter Paul and Mary, not because they were retro and unique, but because we happened to have their records and I liked the way they sounded and I could sing along to them while I played solitaire on the computer. The first CD I ever owned was Gregorian Chanting, picked out by me as a present from my parents for my birthday when I was a teenager, about 13 or 14. I never bought a CD for myself until I was a junior in college. It was Moving, an albulm of Peter, Paul and Mary's.

Suddenly I became wild, and bought CDs like cheap classical ones at Walmart (the best of Baroque, etc) and even a Tim McGraw greatest hits (I'm a sometimes country person) and the soundtrack to O Brother, Where Art Thou. Actually, basically all of my meager personal CD collection came form these few months.

Then, I got engaged and married and didn't have lots of disposable income for my developing music interests, and just took up exploring Avram's already very extensive music collection. From that I broadened my retro music tastes to Arlo Guthrie and Tanglefoot (a Canadian fold group. They're great). Hey, Avram even gave me a CD of Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens – he converted to Islam a long time ago) singing Muslim themed songs. Arabic, Cat Stevens, all in the same place: I love it when my interests coincide.

Mostly though in the last four years I've not thought about music much at all. Until yesterday, when Mom Shannon was trying out a Christmas CD, and hearing it in the other room, I listened to the low, almost jazzy sound of the female singer and realized how much I really liked it. And that reminded me of a music preference of mine; low, mellow female voices, ala Fiona Apple (her first albulm Tidal) and Nora Jones.

Suddenly today I've been looking them up on itunes and listening to two second snippets (it would be thirty seconds, but our dial-up Internet can only deliver the severely shortened versions) and remembering how much I really like their voices, and music style.

And all of a sudden, for the first time since I was in high school, and thought that Alanis Morissette was quirky and Tori Amos's voice beautiful and lyrics genius (and confusing), I realized that I have bona-fide music tastes. And not being in high school any more, I don't need to worry if people around either know or don't know what I'm listening to, and I don't need a cohesive listening genre anyway (this last thing really stopped me, after all, I like bits from almost every genre). See, I feel less frumpy already, because twenty something homemakers who only listen to Seseme Street are frumpy and forgotten, but a twenty something homemaker who has her own vibe and tastes is the bee's knees.

I also explored in two second snippets Carmina Burana, and polyphonic French religious female music like the Anonymous 4 and Hildegard Von Bingen, and I love it. I love it all. Even more amazing, I want to buy it! What I mean here, is I put it on a list, and let Avram buy it for me for birthdays or Christmas, because I have a hard time justifying spending money on music, or books. Avram has the opposite problem; he can buy all the music or books in the world, but balks at things like clothes (which I definitely can buy). He even had a shirt when we got married that read, “When I get a little money, I buy books, and if any is left, I buy food and clothes,” - Erasmus. So I buy him his clothes, and he buys me media and we're all happy.

I don't expect I'll take up ipods and go to concerts, or anything – I haven't had that large of a change of heart. I do feel like I have tastes and they are valid, and I don't need to apologize for not being a music person, because I am one, even if a small one. And whether this means Medieval Baebes (medieval lyrics set to modern Medieval-ish arrangements) or The Fellowship of the Rings soundtrack or even Iz's Over the Rainbow, it's my tastes and I love them.

What do you love?

P.S. I'm continuously amazed by how we our whole lives, but especially in High School, have to be different from everyone around us, but only in carefully pre-arranged ways. Not just in music, but in everything; in clothes, where countless kids express their individuality by all wearing the same color, black, or in all media, where we watch the same popular movies, and read the same popular books about Vampire romance, and be ourselves – just like every one else. We all want to be different, but not too different, then that's just weird.

Now, I'm not condemning something just because everyone is doing it – that's as silly as condemning something because it's different. For example, the greatness that is Lord of the Rings isn't lessened by everyone now liking it. My religious values also aren't lessened because 13 million other people are Mormon and believe what I believe as well. Neither is wearing a medieval clothes and a cloak ridiculous because no one else around is, or being a stay at home mom and having a large family when most of the western world mocks this decision.

I could go on, but I'll end this subsequent soap-box to the main post.