Music and Family

This experience allowed me to get to ask this particular person questions I never really asked. And I would first like to thank Professor Vaneman for giving us the assignment. I learned more about her and my family. So without further ado, I interviewed my beautiful mother. Her name is Patricia Hill at the age of 56 she has four children from the age range of 28 to 20 and is married to my father, Earnest Hill.

 She was a militarily brat so she moved a lot but grew up in Boston, Massachusetts (10 years, between ages 3-13). She grew up in the music-culture of Dick Clark's Top 40s. 

Therefore she grew up listening to Top 40s (light rock) which was popular at the time because her family lived in a white area; and that what her classmates listen to. She also listened to and jazz (Fat Domino) growing up. Her and her siblings listened to whatever their parents listened to. Her dad would listen to Shaft soundtrack by the artist Issac Hayes when they cleaned up the house on Sunday. Which was her first memory of music, listening to Shaft soundtrack while cleaning the house.

They would listen to these records on either the FM radio or on a record player. The music meant to her that she was listening to the memories of her parents. This is also how her parents influenced what she listened to, "They bough the records and only allowed us to listen to certain radio stations." With that being said, music was not a priority in her family because the records were expensive and they did not have much money and only one radio in the house.

In her life, she sung in the church choir and was in a band for one lesson as the trumpet player. She said it was fun singing in the choir. She regrets not learning the piano because she wish she knew how to play it. As I said earlier, she was a military brat and moved a lot, so with all her traveling she said some interesting music she heard along the way was German oomph music, Italian music, and country music. But her favorite culture music is Jamaican.  She did not go to concerts until she dated my father. So her first concert was the jazz fest in Ohio. Some famous musicians she has met are the Troutman brother, Roger, Larry and Zapp from "Roger and Zapp".

Over time her relationship with music did not change. She enjoys all kinds of music and music helps with whatever mood she is in. She does occasionally listen to the same music she listened to growing up because she can still get to it. But it is different because she tends to listen to music that is popular at the time. At the same time, she thinks the music today has too much swearing in it. That there is not a lot of smooth mellow music and its a lot of "booty thumbing" music.  As I said previously, she has four children. All of us played a instrument growing up and she was the one to push us to play them. She said it was part of having us being well rounded people and being cultural.

Some fun facts about her:

She said a special piece of music in her life is my parents wedding song, You are my lady by Freddy Jackson.

And her favorite piece of music is Lean on me by Bill Withers. 

Her favorite artists are The Fugees.

To conclude the interview, I asked her two questions; If you had to describe your life in one song, what would you choose? and What does music mean to you? She said the song would be "Lean on me" because she is always here for the people she loves no matter what and that music means it can make you happy, give you energy but can also make you sad.