This post, originally titled Pianoforte, was written upon my return from taking Mia to school back in the beginning of last October. It’s one of those little stories that makes me grateful to have Writer Dad. As I read this story back, I realized it would have just been one of a million tales that may have never been recalled. The true beauty of a personal blog is the amount of forever you can easily make. Enjoy.
“Music is what feelings sound like.”
~Author Unknown
The stars in the sky occasionally align and I find myself alone with Mia during our daily drive to school. These twenty minutes are treasure. Mia’s two and a half years older than her brother, so conversation with her, as I’m sure you can imagine, exists on a slightly different plane.
This morning, I formally introduced her to the musical stylings of Nirvana. ”What’s Nirvana,” she asked. ”It’s like Heaven,” I said, “only easier to get to.”
I love music.
I thank my parents for permeating my childhood with a ton of tunes. We didn’t have a wide range of diversity; my parents pretty much dug deep on classic rock, but they loved what their choices, attended concerts with semi-frequency, and dribbled their affection down to me.
I love it all. I’ve a soft spot for the classics of course, but my mac’s packed with 80 gigs, jamming everything from Marshall Mathers to Mozart.
My singing voice is terrible. Really, at my best, I sound like a love sick moose. Despite this, I have a decent ear for pulling apart the various sounds in a track. Mia puts my skills to shame. At two and a half, all on her own, she started to identify composers off the classical station in the car.
“What’s that?” Mia asked this morning, while listening to one of Cobain’s quieter numbers. I had to back the track six times to hear what she did: Dave Grohl, lightly tapping his drumstick on a tightened cymbal in composed momentum.
Just a few minutes from campus, I started to explain how Nirvana were BIG TIME when I was in high school.
“Why?” she asked.
“Because they had a new sound,” I said.
“What did it sound like?”
I bounced the track back to “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” and played the first minute. We turned onto her school’s street.
“That’s not a new sound,” she said. “That’s pianoforte.”
Pianoforte: ORIGIN mid 18th century ‘soft and loud,’ expressing the gradation in tone.
Yes, Mia, that’s correct. Nirvana is a wonderful example of pianoforte.
We kissed and she ran from the car to her first grade classroom. Again, I thought how lucky we are that she’s in a class that is challenging her eager mind.
Later on, conversation resumed. Our words drifted to the life, and tragic end of Kurt Cobain.
Nirvana has since become one of her favorite bands. She can’t tolerate it all and thinks that some of it is simply, “noisy guitars yelling.” To that it’s hard to argue. Love Buzz, off Bleach, is one of Max’s favorites. Sharing old music with my children is a little like hearing it for the first time, but through the ears of someone you didn’t know you would ever be.
Writer Dad
