Waltzing with Mom

Most of my friends blast country or the top ten on their radios when their hurtling down the highway enjoying the freedom of solitary driving; I don’t. I mention music frequently on here, but I usually address my love for classic rock, jazz and hipster Norwegians. Oh yeah, and musicals. Now, I love all of these, but I have failed to mention my deep love of “classical” music.* Are you getting the idea? I hear orchestral music on the radio and turn up the radio. Who needs lyrics? Music speaks. I drive to school with Chopin and Mozart, and, if I’m very lucky, a little Vivaldi. I get my nerd on.

There’s a program on my favorite Canadian station that called something like “Music that Rocked Your World.” People write in to request a classical piece that somehow had an impact on them, and include their story. The host for the program makes everything overly dramatic, but I still love hearing the stories. To hear someone else’s emotional connection to music makes me feel a part of something.

I sat down at my piano today, flipping through a compendium of music that my dad had given me for Christmas. I would find a familiar piece, play a few notes, and then move on. I felt that I was looking for something—there was a strain of a melody stuck in my head that I couldn’t quite make out, but I knew it had to somewhere in this book. Then I turned the pages to Brahms’ Waltz in A Flat (Op. 39, No. 15). That was it. A memory rushed over me, full of warm light: I was only six or seven, sitting on my living room floor next to a large portable stereo. My Suzuki violin CD was playing, and I was trying to follow along in my book; I think it must have been a new book, because this was something I would do whenever I moved up—listen and look ahead to all of the new pieces I would be learning in the next months, finding favorites ahead of time. When the CD made it to this waltz, I thought it was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard, and certainly the very best in any Suzuki book I could imagine. I started dancing around the room, and my mother joined me. That’s the image that came to mind—my mother and I twirling through patches of sunlight, my head only just past her waist, my arms wrapped around her, smiles on our faces. That’s music that rocked my world.


*In quotation so that my head remains solidly on my shoulders; I’m aware that this is not the proper terminology, but I would rather appeal to the masses than the choice few, I guess. (P.S.--Baroque music rocks.)

What music rocked your world?