I love music; all kinds of music. When my wife and I started to have a family we discussed how we wanted to make sure our children heard a diversity of musical styles. I wanted to make sure a wide variety of music seemed “normal” to their young ears. I was proud of myself for being so “open minded.”
Now I really love classical music, but if am honest with myself I have my “A” Team and my “B” Team of composers. For many reasons Johann Sebastian Bach has always firmly been in the “B” category. Not that he wasn’t a genius, but for some reason I think of him as technical, but not passionate. Not really a truly “open minded” evaluation. Yet because I am a mandolinist, though not a very good one, I decided to pick up Mike Marshall & Caterina Lichtenberg’s JS Bach.
Now even after the first listen I really enjoyed this album, but it was not until I played it for my two year old that I really started to question my prejudice against Bach. I turned on the music with the hopes of calming her before bed time, but instead of sitting down to cuddle, she jumped up and started dancing. I don’t mean swaying to the music, I mean head banging and thrashing like she was listening to some sort of classic rock. And she did not stop after the first song, she danced with the energy only a toddler can bring to music. The only breaks she took were for the songs that she felt were better expressed by running laps around the couch.
So in an exercise that was supposed to educate my child, I was the one with my eyes opened. I really tried to listen to the joy and passion in Bach’s music. Now Mike Marshall & Caterina Lichtenberg are amazing, and I truly recommend this album to anyone who loves Bach and/or the mandolin, but it is really my daughter who has inspired me to go back and listen to some more of my “B” Team. Hopefully we will both continue to learn more about music over the next few years.
