music, sweet music!

I have ALWAYS been a lover of music! as long as i can remember, as a matter of fact...i can remember being around two or three (i am telling the truth!) and listening to a wind up doll that played a lullaby...i can remember lying in bed and humming along with it...and i was just a baby:) and little did anyone know that that wind up doll may plant a seed of music in my heart...then, after my mom and dad divorced when i was around four, brandon and i received one of those small wind up radios that played "somewhere over the rainbow"...i can remember watching the little boy and girl flying over the rainbow...i am not sure what those little radios are called...i actually still have it...and when i listen to it now, i am suddenly a four year old again...and i can remember every detail of what life was like then...we lived with our grandparents at that age, so there was plenty of bluegrass-gospel blasting in the background! it was always on an AM station...and then we made several trips to festivals and flea markets...where music and smells abound! i can still remember what those places sounded and smelled like! my grandpa had a little red truck that we took to the flea market...he always had a tape in of the greens or the isaacs...i guess i never realized it until i was grownn, but my grandparents were pretty big music buffs...i now appreciate their music and the memories that it brings...when i was in kindergarten my dad bought me a SWEET tape player/boom box...it was very modest...but i LOVED it...i loved listening to the radio, but i had a few tapes as well...i can still remember being in kindergarten, singing "i wanna dance with somebody", with my friend Leah...And i probably bugged brandon to death...i would sing "new flowers" by tiffany and ask him if i sounded like her! i wonder if we were good? i guess i could always find my teacher, Mrs. Roark, and ask her...my tapes consisted of tiffany, wham make it big, george michael, guns n roses, debbie gibson...go figure, right! my dad bought me the tapes...and i loved them all! now that i listen to the lyrics of some of their songs, they are not appropriate ~AT ALL~ for a child of such a young age! but my dad loved music, and i am thankful that he allowed us to enjoy it! (he also took us to see die hard when we were VERY young HAHA!) i also loved riding in the car with my dad...he always beat on his steering wheel and sang in a kind of high pitched, raspy voice HAHA!...i wonder if he still does that? the radio was usually on KZ106 or 96 rock...which, back then, were mainly classic rock/rock stations...stevie winwood, the scorpions and don henley always remind me of daddy...riding with the windows down...of course, there was also "the cohutta classics"...that was our elementary school chorus! if it wasn't for "the cohutta classics", i would have never heard grea hits such as : "what's in the box", " ya' brush your teeth", and "peanut, peanut butter"...so i am eternally grateful....and then one time, while riding to "show biz pizza" now known as "chucky cheeses", i remember hearing "look away" by chicago...and thinking what a good song it was! HA! i was probably a seasoned third grader at this point...i am not kidding...i remember it like it was yesterday...they had one of those station wagons where the very back seat faced backwards...hmmm...let me see...in middle school, there was chorus...this is where i learned about harmony and all of that grand stuff...which i already knew a little bit about from the few "judds" tapes that i had...and grandma and grandpa's bluegrass...we had a little trio group that sang at after school functions...the only song i can remember that we sang was "show me the way" by Styx...every time i hear that song, i think of singing that as a sixth grader to the board of education! that was pretty cool...a middle schooler, singing a Styx song...and then i discovered some of my dad's old tapes from when he lived at my grandma's house...lots of them were led zeppelin, which ended up being one of my favorites...the three that i can remember were zoso, coda and in throught the out door...i loved zoso the best and didn't love the other two! i found out later that those were later albums...so turns out, i liked their older material! when i graduated to a cd player, i think i was in seventh grade! i still have it to this day and have never purchased another! it still works fine...it's a one disc cd player and two deck tape player! the tape players don't work, though...i guess brandon and i did too much dj-ing on it! (i would kill to find those tapes! HAHA!) so once i had my own cd player, i was in serious music business...my dad always hooked it up in the music dept...we always received AT LEAST five cds for christmas...one of my favorites was a led zeppelin box set...wow! what middle schooler gets a zeppelin box set! i loved z93 (a classic rock station) and 99x (alternative) i liked the grunge movement too...i LOVED pearl jam and would have married eddie vedder if he would have tracked me down and proposed...in high school i was fortunate enough to see robert plant and jimmy page in concert...it was for their unledded tour...it was AWESOME! daddy and lisa (his wife) took us...they also took us to see U2, which was a really good one! high school consisted of classic rock and a few good new bands...but i wasn't much into the new stuff...my best friend, tiffany, and i were too cool for school in the music dept! haha! we put radios in our backpacks and would walk down the halls of northwest, blaring led zeppelin!(that is the truth!) haha! that's one of those things that is kind of embarrassing as an adult! but i wouldn't change a thing! in high school, i got to sing at carnegie hall with a choir of kids from all over...it was a great experience...it exposed me to more classical music...it also gave me a love for musicals! as an adult, i am more into bluegrass and folky music...i LOVE alison krauss, ray lamontagne and patty griffin...they are my favorites...i don't go to many concerts these days...with kids, it's not really something we do...the kids have opened a new door to some of the most amazing kids music you have ever heard...elizabeth mitchelle, dan zanes and jack johnson, just to name a few...i did get to see robert plant and alison krauss! it was wonderful...they complemented each other beautifully...i love their openess to new music...both of them are very experimental...i saw norah jones a few years back, but she was very full of herself...i like people that are more humble...but maybe that is hard when you are famous...i also saw celtic woman, which was very relaxing...i am one of those nerds that actually enjoys PBS...sorry...but i LOVE it! of course, i also love good worship music...it is very hard to find christian artists that you love...once you have listened to such beautiful music that is in the world...i like hillsong, rick pino, jason upton...and a few others...i am waiting to find that group that makes me want to weep...that has the same passion for God as those who are in the world...singing about worldly things...God definitely deserves the best...maybe i'll just help create that some day! who knows? i think i love music for a reason? why would someone have such a love for something when they can't even play an instrument?! i have a gibson epiphone acousitc...and it sounds beautiful...i just have to get good at transistioning from chord to chord...which is hard when you have monkies climbing on you ALL day...ellie has been all over me this entire post...so if any of this doesn't make sense (like all of it) then please forgive me...so, what did i leave out...OH YEAH! the whole motivator behind this post is a new thing that janet(my mother in law) told me about yesterday...it is called pandora radio...i had never heard about it...but you type in a favorite artist and it plays others that you would like...if you don't like a selection, you hit "thumbs down"...then they wont play anything like that again...it is AWESOME! i have been listening to it all morning! so go check it out! what are your music memories? leave me a comment and tell me about them! have a beautiful day!!!!