I never stop wondering what it is that makes us love music. I’m sure brain scientists have delved way into the subject, but here are the thoughts of a layperson, who happens also to be a musician.

      There’s something about sounds—a.k.a. music—that to us (“us” depending on one’s culture in this case) are more compelling than mere speech. They captivate us and grab our hearts. Trying to figure out what it is about those sounds that captivates us is an intriguing rabbit hole in which to dive. 

      And those sounds could not have a more important role than they do in these troubling times. I'm a skeptic when it comes to the value of talk therapy, but music therapy? Unquestionably beneficial. And if you want to inspire yourself to struggle against the forces creating the trouble, little helps more than protest music. . . .

     It's a close call (unlike the 2020 election, despite trump's claims—and did you know that lowercasing the “t” in his name is de rigeur?). And I won't fall for the “law” bait—i.e., it'd be way too easy to cite lawyering as life's worst job. It would be in the running had I not spent my 40 years lawyering as a polluter reiner-inner.

      The candidates are the non-music jobs I had ‘twixt undergrad and grad school. Part of it was about quick and dirty— literally and figuratively—ways of making at least a little money; the other part was about this bougie boy learning what it was like to work with one's hands. Those jobs are in a virtual, and I don’t mean in the web sense, tie for worst.

      First we’ll mention the landscaping job I had in Chapel Hill during an undergrad summer and the one I had outside Albuquerque, NM, in the summer after receiving my undergrad degree. That’s when I first learned how bad I was at manual labor. . .

      As a musician and recovering lawyer, I’m taking a dive into why I hardly play any songs younger than 35 years old.

      It’s not just that this old fart kinda stopped listening to pop music some years ago; it relates to the wonderfulness of the music of the ‘50s/’60s/’70s. I’d be the last to argue that that music was somehow superior to today’s. But its border-crossing had lasting effects.

      White kids started listening to R&B/soul, thanks in no small part to the legendary DJ Alan Freed. Before you knew it, that music was affecting the young genre called rock ‘n’ roll, in the U.S. and across the pond. (See, for example, some Liverpudlian band which thought it cute to use a punny name that linked music and insects.) . . .

Music has bookended my life.

Growing up, thanks to the wonderful albums my parents owned, I fell in love with music. I have fond memories of my dad relaxing in his living room chair on the weekends, smoking his pipe and singing out of tune to the live Metropolitan Opera broadcasts.

I, on the other hand, was smitten by new folk, especially that of Dylan and Peter, Paul & Mary, and rock (especially starting with the Beatles), doowop and soul/R&B. 

After my parents made me study piano ('til I whined long enough to get them to let me quit), when I was 13 I decided I wanted to play guitar because I idolized my summer camp’s  charismatic counselor who played that instrument.  

I got my ‘rents to buy me a six-string acoustic and taught myself more in a few months than I’d learned about piano in a year and a half. . . .

Link for ROB GELBLUM’s music.