Buffling Off to Shuffalo

Quote of the day:
“Silly is you in a natural state, and serious is something you have to do until you can get silly again.”
--Mike Myers

I’ve noted before that Merrie and I listen to music every morning. These days we’re sticking mostly to fairly mellow stuff. We need the calming, what with the tornado of a German Shepherd puppy surrounding us so much of the time.

I’ve listened to classical music for most of my life. We had just a few classical records when I was growing up, but they were played a great deal. My father loved Beethoven’s Violin Concerto and his Symphony No. 6, so I practically know those works by heart.

I began playing classical records on the radio when I was in college, first on the campus station (“Welcome to Classical Showcase...”), and then on three public stations in Baltimore, Birmingham and San Diego.

What is this, my resume?

Anyway, we usually play classical music in the mornings. I’ve put most of our CDs on our iMac, and I’ve gotten to like putting them on “shuffle” and listening for hours. It’s like having our own radio station.

There are often some strange juxtapositions, especially since individual cuts from CDs are shuffled. That means there will be a movement from a Schubert string quartet followed by an aria from Puccini’s “La Boheme,” followed by something by John Adams.

I know I will now get hate mail from musicians and classical purists, who emit an odd combination of sobbing and retching when they think of anyone listening to single movements out of the context of the larger work.

But I find it illuminating. We often discover buried treasures in the form of music deep inside an album we haven’t listened to much.

Or it might be a work we have heard a lot, but hearing a piece of it out of context gives it a whole new meaning.

It’s kind of like sitting down, putting on just one song and listening attentively to it. Who knows what we might discover?