Music and Family

The following is the transcript from the interview I conducted with my mom about her experiences with music throughout her life. She had talked about her prior experiences with me before, but this was a much more in-depth look for me at her life and the music that has influenced it and I wound up learning new things about her.

[Interview starts]

Tue, Jan 20, 10:44 PM (11 hours ago)

[Emma Jane] 0:00
Okay, did you play an instrument when you were younger?

[Mom] 0:05
Yes, I played the piano, kind of but I played the flute and I was pretty good at it.

[Emma Jane] 0:13
Were you self taught?

[Mom] 0:14
No, I played in the band at school.

[Emma Jane] 0:18
Do you have an instrument that you wished you knew how to play?

[Mom] 0:22
Violin.

[Emma Jane] 0:24
Did you sing in a choir?

[Mom] 0:26
Yes, lots at church, at school, at school, high school, chorus, Junior High chorus, church choir. Yeah.

(Here's a song she gave me from her choir days that she enjoyed. I have no idea if this is the version she sang.)

[Emma Jane] 0:39
What kind of music do you not like?

[Mom] 0:47
Probably heavy metal.

[Emma Jane] 0:58
How did you listen to music when you were younger.

[Mom] 1:02
Well, we had eight tracks, and then we graduated to cassette tapes on boom boxes, and had a Walkman with headphones and stereo in my room. And, yeah, that's how I listened to music.

[Emma Jane] 1:21
Okay, um, growing up, did you have any, like, music restrictions, and did you rebel?

[Mom] 1:30
You know, I really didn't have music restrictions.

[Emma Jane] 1:33
That's crazy. Because you were a pastor's daughter. Maybe they just didn't feel the need, like they knew you weren't going to get into stuff or something. How did your taste of music compare to the taste of those around you?

[Mom] 1:56
I don't know. I guess my parents didn't listen to the top 10 hits like I did, but I wasn't really rebellious in my music taste like I said, I liked musicals and Broadway hits and stuff like that. None of that was really different from my parents.

[Emma Jane] 2:20
Yeah. Did you like, did you like different artists or genres than most of your friends?

[Mom] 2:30
No, I was in pretty geeky group of peoples. That was kind of what we did. I mean, I listened to the popular songs of the day as well, but the other stuff is really what I took a lot of joy in.

(She listened to a lot of musicals and this was one of the examples she gave me.)

[Emma Jane] 2:49
Last question, what kind of music would you like at your funeral?

[Mom] 2:54
I guess sacred hymn music.

[Interview ends]

I had no idea my mom was so into musicals growing up and I found it rather interesting she had no music restrictions growing up. I might be responsible for her desire to learn the violin; I have gushed about my instrument to her on a few occasions. Anyway, I had fun conducting this interview and I hope you had fun reading it.