Music Education by Intuition

In my post “Can you be born a musician?“, I wrote about the first exposure of my musical experience of listening to the radio all the time. But my early musical experience was not limited only to the radio, since we had an endangered species that you can barely find today called an LP record player.

This odd machine was big and cumbersome, although it didn’t have a handle like the gramophone. The records were made from vinyl and tended to have scratches. Because of its unique character, it wasn’t made for curious children like me.

In my LP library you could have found African music as well as “The Golden Trumpet” or Mozart‘s 40^th symphony.

Here is a beautiful photo of an album that I used to listen to with my father many times.

I guess these albums weren’t special and you could have found them in almost every house in those days.

 I remember myself asking my mom or dad to put a record on the LP for me. Sometimes I listened to my favorite children’s record, “The Sound of Music” or something else like ‘Ipi Tombi‘, a popular band at that time.

Unfortunately I didn’t manage to find the original video with the song I liked so much. I will be thankful if you can find it and send it to me.

This popular musical based on African musical fragments was also broadcasted on an Israeli night.

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I am wondering what happened to all these happy nice people who were dancing and singing so beautifully on my T.V and LP player….

Sometimes in those days, when the LP record player was working, I used to repeatedly hear the same musical phrase again and again for 1000 times, because it had a scratch on the vinyl and the music was stuck on the same phrase. Eventually someone understood that there was a problem and moved the needle to another place in the record so we could continue to hear rest of the music.

Here is a beautiful artistic interpretation of this phenomenon.

Maybe in my future posts I will tell you the interesting story behind this piece…

Amongst of all the LP collection that we had in our library, I found an abandoned dusty green box that had been there for many years without attracting my attention. This old box contained an anthology of classical music records, which was inherited from an anonymous uncle that I never saw. The music that was in the box had a very ancient smell, like the antique black and white photos of my unknown family members that I have never met and could never meet. It took me some time to discover this box, but as soon as I found it, it became very special to me.

The turning point of my musical development was when my sister who was eight years older than me started to play the piano. From her first sloppy sounds on the keyboard until she could play the canonic pieces by Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven, I was her first admirer (maybe even before my mom and dad).. Since she was very self disciplined and she had a very demanding mother, she played for 2 or more hours a day. For thousands of times, I listened to the pieces over and over again. I was very happy and fortunate because I had free ear-training for years without any complaints about doing homework. The music seeped into my body and soul because I was listening all the time. I remember myself listening to her playing every day and looking for her improvement and for the different musical styles which I didn’t know how to identify at that time. My dream was to be able to play like my sister. She was the representative for me for Beethoven, Mozart, Debussy and many other musical friends.

Have you ever noticed the phenomenon of children having the same experience again and again without it becoming tedious or monotonous – be it music, games or stories?

Why do you think it is happening?

What is the meaning of having the same experience over and over again?

Can you imagine other fields were the same phenomenon is happening?

Do you have any stories that can reinforce the idea a reoccurring pattern?

What are your insights about this phenomenon?

I would also love to read your questions, ideas and tips from you that have to deal with the issue at hand.

Yours,

Maya Liberman

 

Related articles

• Dig this, old vinyl turns to gold (thehindu.com)

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