Music . . . a late start

At 73 I'm finally learning music.

I didn't grow up with music. My generation didn't have cell phones and ear buds that let you live, 24/7 in mystical musical garden. Our generation had the 78's and funky 45's. But a record player didn't germinate in my room. Comic books blossomed there.

My musical journey has been an intermittent waiting at bus stops but not getting on. In high school, I was intrigued by the Beatles but was gobsmacked by the hysteria that cocooned them. In college, a dorm mate was an avid Bob Dylan fan, but I didn't have a clue of who Bob was. I had a room mate who loved Ray Charles and we'd go bar hoping in Baton Rouge while he sang Hit the Road Jack. In the Army I enjoyed a weed enhanced ride on the Staten Island ferry and the New York subway to become momentarily mesmerized by Woodstock, the movie, before a downer in the third hour caused me to ruminate about what's it all about. After that I found myself dolefully perking up when He Ain't Heavy He's My Brother or Bridge Over Troubled Waters played on the radio in the barracks. I met my future wife, Chris, in Belgium and  American Pie became "our song" because of it's subtle Louisiana back flavor. We got married in Baton Rouge, so Me and Bobby McGee is one of our favorites. Chris was on the 'bus'; she saw the Rolling Stones before one of them became a magazine. 

My wife introduced me to Harry Chapin, Queen, Procol Harum, The Lovin' Spoonful, Blood Sweat and Tears, Cream, The Byrds, Fleetwood Mack. We gravitated toward folk music and, when we moved to Tennessee, country.

Recently I developed an itch to make music.  It began two months ago. 

I bought my son and daughter electronic violins. I have this fantasy that one of my grandchildren might end up playing.  Truth be told, it was me who wanted a violin, but watching my son fiddle with the tuning (unintentional pun) and noticing that the fret was fretless made me realize that I needed something a bit less uncontrolled. Hello Mr Yamaha Keyboard.

Keyboard-san

After making Keyboard-san comfortable in a corner, I proceeded to do my normal bit of sabotaging . . . I got books.

Lots of books!

All sorts of books:

• Piano for Adults; 
• Piano for kids, 
• How to read Music, 
• How to Read Music for Dummies; 
• Music Theory 1; 
• Music Theory 101; 
• Music Theory for Dummies

I call this sabotage because I know, 

really really know,

that in order to learn music, 

I 

HAVE

TO

PLAY

MUSIC

Reading about music isn't MUSIC!

But I ignored this wise part of myself, paradoxically force feeding my brain musical wisdom by signing up for coursera Fundamental Music Theory and binging on Great Courses musical offerings.

I rationalized the book buying, the coursera, the binge learning as a way to DEVELOP A GAME PLAN. Imagine my surprise to discover, when I finally started practicing with Piano for Adults and taking advantage of the three months of "flowkey" that came with my keyboard, that the book and the app have a game plan integrated in the lessons!

So now, only two months after Keyboard-san's arrival, I've put the books away and started plinking along with flowkey, working my way through Piano for Adults and Hanon, and watching Zach Evans' Become a Piano Superhero videos.

To be or not to be vaccinated, a cultural dysfunction?

I was talking with my daughter and we disagree about COVID-19 vaccinations.

I support a strategy of pushing vaccinations as a way to minimize the number of people who are hospitalized and/or die, we should focus our efforts on vaccinating residents 35 and older. They account for 97% of the hospitalizations and deaths.

My daughter was pointing out that the COVID-19 vaccines have caused heart problems. It turns out that she's correct, there have been cases of myocarditis and pericarditis after vaccinations among people less than 30.  Here are three articles that address the issue:

• from Harvard Medical School publications
• from a website called Science Based Medicine
• from CNBC

For people less than 30, if they want a vaccination but are anxious about their heart, they should consider the J&J vaccine.

Our discussion mad me realize how disgruntled I am that that our 'culture' has politicized wearing masks and getting vaccines.  These health strategies were turned into symbols that, because of loyalty, cannot be disentangled. Our inability as a culture to address health is dysfunctional. 

Judging the last paragraph to be a rant, I decided to take a step back and look at our country's health via the death and mortality data for the US and the world. At first, based on comparing the causes of death in the US to the world, I thought I was ranting without merit. But then I noticed an aberration. The US has a higher mortality rate for cancer than other high income countries. 

Our cultural dysfunction has a physical manifestation: 

we are eating ourselves from the inside out.