Música e inspiración 🎶🛢️
Music means the world to me. I only ever did choir and various open mics growing up, so I took a piano class this semester to learn more about the songs that really moved me.
I had a midterm for it last week that I needed to study for. My piece was Beethoven's Turkish March, so I offered a friend a burger coupon in exchange for teaching me how to keep a beat while playing. My friend is a genius piano player and a great teacher, so I got very far for my single lesson bought in-kind (medium-well.) While we were eating, I was telling her how arpeggios (those three-note tunes spanning an octave) sounded so nostalgic. I mentioned something about baseball. I couldn't put it into words, and I knew that I was missing something.
Later that week, I went to a Bob Dylan concert with another friend. I didn't grow up listening to him or any other folk singers like she had. I only started hearing his music when I moved to Minnesota over a year ago. I wanted to be closer to Minnesotan culture, so those first few days being here meant listening to him and Prince for the first time haha. Culture is typically very deliberate for me, so this was nothing new.
His songs are way more amazing than people say! One of my housemates and I sang so much Blood on the Tracks together this winter (to the annoyance of all our neighbors.) A lot of my fall memories involve me walking across the Mississippi listening to "Visions of Johanna" with my eyes following the water. I knew that none of these songs were gonna be played at any concert of his, but I wanted to see him anyways.
I love the texture of trees just before the leaves bloom in Spring
So I picked my other Bob-head friend up and moved along Highway 61 (duh.) We listened to his old albums before he'd perform his new-age work live. The concert was what I expected it to be: Bob avoiding the big city, playing his own setlist how he wants, and heading out without leaving anyone all that that satisfied. But I got my money's worth; I'm the ideal sucker that dreams of tell some future great grand-nephews that I saw Bob Dylan.
On the way back, we played anything other than Dylan. My friend is a real folk fan, so she showed me real folk music from her own roots. But then she started playing my own folk music too. She played Los Tigres del Norte, Marco Antonio Solis, Vicente Hernandez, et cetera: the songs that mi madre played on the radio my whole childhood. Then she played "Amor Eterno" by Juan Gabriel (the original author's version) and despite not knowing Spanish, expressing to me so clearly her own familiarity with the song how much it moved her.
I'm usually on the other side of those moments of connection. I loved learning about history and other places growing up, so I would always talk to foreigners about their own worlds. My own experiences talking about Inönü to a Turk or asking a Russian their favorite moments with Gena and Cheburashka fills these foreigners I would meet with so much joy. United Statesians don't know or care about those things, so even a passing mention of these tokens of 'local' knowledge is enough caring to make a difference in someone's day. Cause really, it's not these tokens that really matter, so much as them being a medium of emotional connection, like humid air being the medium for arcs of lighting.
There's a danger in letting those symbols take too much power. Mexican culture isn't rare anywhere in this country, but you can't really get that kind of recognition from other Hispanics. There's a pecking order that forms among paisanos; it's a constant, internal comparisons over accent, skin color, spice tolerance, how many sacraments you completed, how often you go back to the home country, citizenship...and music tastes, an anxiety over losing your culture but still assimilating to stay legal or at the very least productive. For the first generation born here, it's less recognition for who you are than scrutiny for what you lack against others with your 'same' background. It's authenticity-chasing that fills you with too much doubt to ever have the courage to make your own traditions.
But that's not what I felt hearing my friend on that car ride. That's not what I feel when my film BFF accompanies me with playing Las Mañanitas for important birthdays. And I especially felt the love of sight when so many childhood friends helped me with Briana's ofrenda last year. It's sincerity in my own convictions alongside the love of friends and family that makes traditions authentic to me.
Estoy tan acostumbrado teniendo que aprender la cultura de otros. Entonces es una sorpresa muy grande cuando encuentro amigos haciendo ese esfuerzo tambien. Me llena con tanta alegria.
I called parents later that weekend to ask more about the songs they listened to growing up. I got some Mexican pop out of my mom and more música norteña from my dad (+ Prince haha.) They also told me more about my own trip to see Juan Gabriel as a tiny kid and singing "No Tengo Dinero" for months on end after.
Oh, and I figured out what was going on with Turkish March. It's the theme song for El Chavo del Ocho, my favorite show as a kid. You can look it up to listen,,, or you can hear my own performance below.
