Music and Family

Music's been a really important part of my life because of my parent's love for it. My mom especially has been a musician her whole life so I decided to interview her for this blog. 

So before I begin I should give a little bit of background on my mom. Most of you know her as Mrs. Roche and she's the main accompanist here at Converse College. She received her undergraduate in piano performance and her masters in accompanying and has been playing the piano since she was pretty much able to walk.

Me: What is your favorite memory or experience of music?

Mom: Ohhhh that's hard.... my favorite experience? Gee there's so many to choose from but what I remember with great fondness is playing for operas and musicals at Brevard. Being in orchestra and you know making these shows come alive. Helping the kids learn it and then see the finish product when it was done. I never got to see any of it while I was coaching them I could only hear it and then to go to the final performance and watch it all come together, it was just so much fun. I miss it a lot. 

Me: What is your first memory of music?

Mom: HAHAHA.. This is a memory that I think I have but it might just be something people keep telling me about it. I was 3 and my parents took me to see "Traviata" and of course she dies at the end. And my three year old self was very confused, so I'm told, because the soprano was extremely large and was supposedly died of consumption so everyone kind of giggled and I was highly indignant that people were giggling about her dying.

Me: How did music impact your childhood?

Mom: My father looooved music. He was not a musician but he loved classical music and he loved singers. Every Sunday he would play the stereo, the high-fi, all afternoon and it would be ballets and operas. I got to know stuff just by osmosis because it was always being played. My grandmother, my father's mother, lived next store to a piano teacher, so she got into her head that I was going to play the piano. She bought me a piano when I was three, she bought me one of those little toy ones, and I can remember just banging away on that thing. But I started piano lessons with the person that lived next door to my grandmother and stayed with him till I graduated highschool. My mother was deaf or hard of hearing and she said she loved music but I'm not really sure how she experienced it but she would love it when I would play. Most of any kind of music influence or anything else was from my father and grandmother. 

Me: How did music impact culture or society around you when you were growing up? 

Mom: This wouldn't be society at large but my society that I grew up around. My parents were Lithuanian and we went to a Lithuanian social club every week. They would always a polka band so I grew up dancing the polka every Sunday and loving it. I also remember loving Lawrence Welk and actually this is interesting, looking back recently from some things from my grammar school days, elementary school days, and they had done a poll when I was about in the 4th grade of what your favorite TV shows were and Lawrence Welk was right up there in the top 10 amongst the 4th graders! Go figure! But as far as a society, I grew up in the 60s and wasn't really allowed to hear the popular music because it was considered bad. Anybody with long hair was hippie and horrible. My parents were a lot older than me and they were aghast at all this stuff that was going on so I never got exposed to that music growing up. I mostly got exposed to classical music. 

Me: You actually answered a few of my next questions HAHA. So how old were you when you actually started taking lessons?

Mom: Well, officially 7. That's when I started taking lessons from my real teacher. But I started taking with his son earlier because his son, who was a few years older than me, was my playmate and he would teach me how to play scales and the things he was learning. So I guess i was actually 6ish. 

Me: What was your favorite memory of playing the piano when you were a kid?

Mom: I think it was when I did accompanying in my junior high for Glee club or chorus, whatever you call it. It was a lot of fun and I was very, very shy so that was my way to make friends because people would come and talk to me. 

Me: What sort of technology did you use to listen to music? 

Mom: I had a transister radio that we would listen to, but usually the stereo. The high-fi, you know the long LPs, we would listen to those. I'd listen to those all the time. When I got a little bit older tapes or cassettes were in. So were eight tracks but I never really had one of those. I just listened to cassettes or LPs. 

Me: How was that changed over the years?

Mom: Oh God, now you can listen and download things onto your phone and stuff. When I was younger you had to own the physical tape or record to listen to the music you wanted to hear. In highschool mix tapes were a big thing. You'd record your favorite songs and put it on a cassette tape.  A  lot of boyfriends would do this as a gift. 

Me: That brings me to my next question, what was your favorite record or tape that you listened to when you were a kid? 

Mom: Oh gosh, I had so many! I will tell you this, I memorized the entire  LP of the Wizard of Oz, even the dialogue. I would listen to it so much and it wasn't just the music, it was the entire movie. 

Me: Where was your go to place to listen to music?  

Mom: When I was little, the stereo was behind this really big chair and I would sit behind it were no one could see me and just listen. When I got older it was my bedroom. 

Me: What outlet did you use music for then? What about now?

Mom: Oh, expression. Totally expression. And to make friends since all of my friends were my music friends. Now it would probably be for the same thing and to bring joy to other people. Also to relax but you know to bring joy to people because music is the universal language. 

Me: Do you have a fond memory associated with a song you listened to when you were younger?

Mom: That's a good questions... One of the songs I fell in love with was Gloria Esefan's "Fall Harder". She would sing it at high school on the stage, just her and her guitar and it always brought tears to my eyes. I fell in love with that song because of her. 

Me: What is your favorite genre or artist today? 

Mom: Classical music probably. I love to listen to vocal music and orchestral music. Funny enough I don't really enjoy listening to piano music, it's just not my thing. I don't have a favorite artist because there's so many good ones out there. 

Me: How do you feel music has evolved over the course of your life?

Mom: I think it has become more, what's the word? Technological and less acoustic. I feel like we don't have the artistry now like we used to because people aren't disciplined enough to get to that artistic level. There are still people who get there but it's not the norm anymore. And I don't think we strive for beauty as much as we used to. Now it's all about the technique. I just think it's ugly and there's not much I like about it. 

Me: Now for my last question: What makes you feel connected to a piece of music? 

Mom: It has to touch me in some way, touch my emotions.