Musical Diet

Most conservatory students listen to a huge amount of music during their undergraduate years. It is a rich time of becoming aware of the vast feast of repertoire that exists.

I am more than ten years away from that rich time now, and occasionally I hear things on the radio that I recognize, maybe that I've even played (!), but can't quite place. Several of my friends have had the same experience.

Another idea I had while driving to Florida: As I thought of how slippery my musical memories have become, it occured to me that I could refresh my knowledge of repertoire by having daily meals of music. I sit down to eat three times a day. Why not add some music to the meals? If I listened to one piece per meal for 10 months out of the year that would be 900 pieces of music reviewed or heard for the first time!

So we started this new diet when we got home. We're working our way through our CD shelves. Whatever CD is next on the shelf, that's what we listen to. After the CDs, we'll move on to tapes, then records.

In a week of doing this we've already heard music by Poulenc, Satie, Tallefiere, Brahms, Sarasate, Mozkowski, Ben-Haim, Weinberg, Shostakovich, Liszt, Berg, Webern, Tailleferre, Honegger, and Paganini.

I highly recommend feeding on music in this way.