My First LP Record
I bought this 36 years ago, when I was 14. I made the purchase at MacDill Airforce Base, which had a WalMart-style commissary that included a record store. Damn if the record jacket does not look good as new even today. I have not played it in a very long time, so I don’t know how the record itself sounds.
I got back to thinking about classical music and me. I don’t talk about it much even though it’s as big a part of my life as almost anything could be. I’ve never been able to show off my sheet music bookshelf, since I’ve never invited over anyone who would be interested. My connection to this stuff is such a part of my being that explaining it would be like describing my fingernails, or my hair. Who needs to hear about that stuff? I also grew up in a world where you were considered a “fagot” if you even listened to classical music, much less played it. On the opposite end of the perception spectrum were those who assumed classical players looked down on others, considering them low class or uncultured. I never felt that way about such things but unfortunately the stereotype of the pretentious classical musician and listener is not without substance.
As a kid I was conflicted about the profile of classical music in the big wide world. I asked my mother once why so much classical music was so damn boring. She took offense at first but I seem to remember we had a decent conversation about it. I’ve not been a part of the music world of late, but I wonder if anything has changed. Are classical players still ridiculed simply for playing an instrument? Do people still feel that the genres of music which very comprise the term “classical” are all magnets for elitists and those attempting to look smarter than anybody else?
I don’t know if I ever “dressed up” when going to the opera or a Carnegie Hall concert. I would not have gone in shorts and a t-shirt but compared to other concert-goers I was probably pretty slovenly. That is one of the dynamics contributing to my belief that classical concerts are stiff, uncomfortable affairs, even though I don’t feel like they should be. Another dynamic is the silence. (That’s funny: Dynamic silence.) Coughing is frowned upon, and one teacher from my past instructed us to give the evil eye to anyone who made such noises, whether they could help it or not. I thought that was a little much, even in the 9th grade.
But I started to understand the sartorial expectations of classical concert-goers at the Metropolitan Opera, or rather at the Ziegfeld movie theater where I once saw a simulcast from the opera house. Before the opera started the cameras were panning the audience, ending up focusing on a woman talking on her cell phone. She was magnificently dressed, her hair and makeup to the nines. It was obvious to me that she thought going to the opera should include looking the part, and doing so in itself elevates the experience.
There is, of course, an assumption that a live concert is a once-in-a-lifetime event, and the performers deserve as exclusive the audience’s attention as possible. But the teacher who instructed us to scowl at coughers seemed a little over the top. What difference does it even make?
OK, I need some daylight. I’ve been writing almost all day. There’s a yay.
