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| Abba - definitely not old school |
While I honestly think 9 is a bit young to be dissing each other's musical tastes (!) the above, and a few other recent incidents, have made me wonder about how and whether we, as parents, influence our children's musical tastes. The death of David Bowie last week made me realise the children didn't have a clue who he was -- so I remedied that by playing them a few tracks at the weekend. (They liked "Space Oddity" and went crazy dancing to "Rebel Rebel"). Also this week, Expat Mum posted on Facebook about her 12-year-old singing "Bohemian Rhapsody" - I've tried to get the boys into that one and so far, failed.
There is a great feature-ette on BBC Radio 4's 'Saturday Live' called "Inheritance Tracks" where a celebrity talks about the music they inherited and the music they will pass on. And if you read interviews with musicians they will quite often cite the music their parents played in the house as being inspirational. But what age does this start? (And did those people actually hate their parents' music at the time, and only now recognize it as cool?)
My boys are both pretty musical, although to date their musical education has been more about learning the piano and violin and listening to a few, mostly classical, concerts at school. Very occasionally they comment on a song that's playing on the radio in the car, and as they get older this is happening more regularly. This weekend they both announced that "Stay with me" by Sam Smith is "actually quite good" and they're also quite vociferous about stuff they don't like -- so far, anything involving rap. They also love Abba (see above) since we played it in the car quite a bit last summer on holiday in Italy. But they've never been into watching MTV, like one of their cousins, and we're not the kind of hip parents who take our kids to Glastonbury or Bestival, so they probably know relatively little about modern music (other than the stuff I listen to in the car).
I sense they're at an age now where I could start to give them a bit of a musical education - not that I'm any kind of expert, but I know what I like and have, I think, fairly broad, although mainstream, tastes. But in a few years, won't this just be the equivalent of "Dad Dancing?' Is there any point in trying to get your children to appreciate the music you like? Or is liking different stuff to your parents just a perfectly normal form of teenage rebellion.....and maybe I should just let them work it out for themselves.
Oh, I asked Littleboy 2 what the mean boy did like (apart from Michael Jackson). His brother Littleboy 1 snorted before he could answer and said: "Probably One Direction."
At least he shares my opinion on that one....
10 comments:
One of my favourite parenting memories was when my second child, aged 10 or 11, introduced me to a track he really liked, "Soul Sister" by Train. I have no idea how he found it, but I can't hear it without smiling at the memory. He scorns my taste in music, and thinks the '80s were beyond the pale. Daughter is more open to old stuff, and loves Abba.
I love "Inheritance Tracks". It's a really good listen.
I've gone one further and down-loaded the vocal and piano score for B Rhapsody so now he's banging away at it every night.
One thing I've noticed is that, my kids - up to about age 12 or 13 - like old stuff because my hub and I play that more than we play current music. So when the intro for "Start me Up" or "Rebel Rebel" comes on, they know what it is immediately. Once they start listening to their own stuff they're gone but at least I've given them a good grounding!
Mine all adore ABBA too. And Queen. And The Beatles. We're 'Old School' as well.
If you believe the experts, kids can even pick up on music while they are in the womb.I think mine came out humming the tune from Eastenders!
It used to be that we listened to all our music in the car and elsewhere and the kids liked Bread just as much as Abba, Queen, and random tracks from the 80s... Video Killed the Radio Star being a long term favourite. Now my girls are 15 and 13 I find the school run subjected to Taylor Swift and The Vamps. This is what they invented headphones for, of course! Luckily my 17 year old son still likes the 'old' stuff.
We played all our favorites in the car (and house) when the boys were growing up, and while both of them have their own musical taste, they both also share a love of Indie/Folk with me and MrL, so I would say that your taste does leave its mark over time! Our Christmas present from #1 was concert tickets for all 4 of us to see an indie blues/rock artist favorite of his who happened to be playing while we were in TX in December. He knew our taste and knew we would all enjoy it - and we did!
Take them to the ABBA museum in Stockholm!! My girls love ABBA, too, like all children do here in Sweden. I think it's called national heritage or something :)
Poor Fred just had to put up with my music (which was on 24/7 at home), and come along to gigs with me...the ones at Somerset House were a good introduction. So his early life was dominated by my musical tastes, and then he evolved his own. I guess he was lucky as I listen to everything from Bruckner to Dave Clark to Abba to Deep Purple to Stereophonics...
I have on occasion been known to get my boys out of bed by playing my daughter's ( and my ) favourite One Direction.
In classic midlife crisis mode I am utterly addicted to Mumford and Sons and my teenage son simply despairs - 'posh farmers with banjos mama'.
My older sister goes to concerts and my middle sister saw Dolly Parton at Glastonbury.
David Bowie walked past me once whilst I was 'singing' Teddy Bears Picnic to my then baby son number one. He was utterly charming and had the most lovely speaking voice - THE perfect London accent.
My poor children have been subjected to our music which is eclectic to say the least - they've discovered Spotify and have now created their own playlists (admittedly influenced by radio 1 listening nanny rather than our radio 2 efforts I think)
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