I am an extreme lover of music. It has impacted my life so much, especially because my mother, father, and my grandfather were musicians and loved music almost as much as I do. Recently, I have been working on a little project in my Radio Operations class and the topic I chose was music and its major role in my life. For this project, I spoke to my mom a little bit about how music means to my family.
We both grew up with music always playing somewhere. At home, from the radio, in the car, etc. It was a way to fill the space we were in with some sort of background noise so that we weren’t always lounging in silence. However, I envy my mom’s music set up.
“When I was a little girl, I always remember music being played in the house. I thought we had the coolest setup because the turntable was in my parents’ bedroom and the speakers were out in the living room. I didn’t really know how that all worked, but I thought it was really cool that we could hear it everywhere,” my mom said.
During my childhood, I treasured my iPod and loved to hook it up to the small speakers and dance around to it. This specific iPod, called an iRiver for some strange reason, was bestowed upon me when I was pretty young after my mom and dad had used it. Therefore, it was filled with all the music they loved. It was really fun for me because I got to be connected to my parents through music.
After my father passed away in 2017, I turned to music during my grief, and it took me his death to fully realize how much music meant to him and to all of us. I knew music had to be a part of my father’s funeral because it was the only way I knew how to truly honor his life. I was lucky enough to be the one to curate the playlist and got to learn a little bit of his love of music and what artists and albums and songs he liked. We knew that music was a great way to connect people to his life and his experiences.
“People become emotional when they hear a song that connects with their heart in some way. Maybe they’re grieving or maybe they can’t find the words to express how happy they are. Maybe they’re really struggling with something in their life. Music tends to evoke a kind of emotional response that people really need and the outlet that people are looking for,” my mom said. “I think music becomes kind of our life’s soundtrack and when we hear a song and then we think, oh my gosh, that’s when I was driving across the country to take a job in a new state.I remember that song playing and it gave me courage and strength. It’s a real connectional force.”
Music is one of my biggest loves, and it’s power has helped me through my time of grief and rehabilitation after some hard years in my life. Knowing that I will always have music as a way to connect to people and my family means more to me than words can say. One may think that only music could express it.
“I just think music has a way of helping us articulate what we can’t or don’t have words for. Music is that conduit to be able to do that.”